Jet Lag
by Interspark
Summary: The Crystal Gems aren't the only Gems to come to earth, and Rose Quartz isn't the only Gem to fall in love with a human. There's no real reason for them to think that Steven kid is so unique, and yet they do. Narcissism maybe? Anyway, my name is Jayla Mills, my mum was Jet 2L7 Y16 and who knows? Maybe I have a magical destiny of my own.
1. Prologue

It was a breathtaking night, outside of Empire City. On the horizon, the gleaming lights of the metropolis, shone from the ground like a gleaming jewel, cutting through the darkness, and overhead, a million stars twinkled merrily. Out in the sprawling countryside, the only sound to be heard, was the animalistic roar of a motorcycle, as it tore across the empty roads. The vehicle boasted an incredible design and upkeep, and its beauty was easily appreciated by even the most casual of motorcycle fans, and no one appreciated it more than its rider.

The rider was clad in a leather biker's suit and helmet, the latter failing to contain her plentiful, black hair, which flew behind her like a cape. As the bike reached the top of a hill, the rider slowed to a stop, and removed her helmet, allowing the remainder of her hair to spill over her shoulders.

Her name was Abigail Mills. As a busy, big city gal, with a full-time job, Abigail's motorcycle rides through the country were a rare treat, but one of her favourite pastimes, especially on nights as perfect as this. Abigail's motorcycle had been with her since she was a teenager, and was her proudest possession. The bike's name was Veronica.

Abigail sat on her bike for several minutes, enjoying the cool, spring breeze in her hair. She liked Empire City enough, but she honestly thought she would go insane if she didn't step out for some fresh air at least every few weeks, as she was doing now.

She was almost ready to head home, when something caught Abigail's eye- a streak of white light, making its way through the stars above her. At first, she thought it was a shooting star, but quickly noticed it was going too slowly. The white streak flew lower and brighter, then began to expand, growing larger until Abigail made the fearful conclusion that a meteor was hurtling towards her. She was almost ready to leap into the ditch by the road for safety, when she noticed the object's unnatural trajectory.

The thing curved through the air, making to zoom over Abigail's head. As it did, she realised that the faux meteor wasn't one object at all, but three vehicles, the likes of which she had never seen. Small, one-seater planes, which looked like they had flown out of a science fiction movie. The one in front was engulfed in green flames, and was under laser fire from the two in pursuit.

The dogfight darted its way across a vast corn field, until the flaming ship veered upwards and span in the air, like a flipped coin, before its engines burst into life, sending all three ships into a collision course, with a mighty eruption of green fire, and a shockwave that threw back Abigail's locks.

Abigail spared a moment to stare at the dancing flames in wonder, before racing towards them. As she pushed her way through the towering stalks of corn, she came to terms with the incredible notion of what she had just seen- three alien spaceships had just crash landed outside of Empire City!

The crash zone was a site to behold, the three ships had fallen apart into relatively few pieces, all lying amongst the dancing, emerald flames. Abigail's suit and helmet were as good as body armour against the fire, she just tried to keep it from reaching her exposed hair. The ship's windscreens were gone, revealing a series of flat panels, in front of empty seats. There were no pilots to be found, just flakes of rubble and what looked like shards of gemstones.

The ship which had been leading the pursuit, was the most damaged of all. A wing from one of its pursuers had penetrated the cockpit, and yet still, no sign of an alien pilot (living or otherwise) could be found.

Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Abigail took hold of the wing, and heaved it out of the ship's cockpit, reasoning that there had to be a pilot concealed inside somewhere, but once she pushed the slab of metal aside, she was frustrated to see another empty cockpit, although, rather than shards, this one contained a whole, pitch black gemstone, tiny and long, like the jewel from a necklace.

Abigail was about to pick the gem up when, to her astonishment, it lifted out of the cockpit and into the air, all the while, radiating a white light. After hovering for a few seconds, the light took a humanoid form, before fading away, leaving a person to drop to the ground, falling into an action stance, before backflipping onto the wreckage of her ship.

The person who had been projected from the gem was wearing a jet-black flight suit with a silver trim. Her skin was dark grey and she boasted an attractive, white mohawk. The gemstone seemed to be attached to her skin, at the base of her neck. She stared at Abigail in alarm, which eventually melted away into relief. She sighed, and hopped down from her ship.

"You're not a Homeworld mechanoid..." She pointed out, as she strolled over. "What are you, some primitive, local automaton?" The alien woman ran her hand along the arm of Abigail's biker suit. "Is this... organic refuse? Gross!" She laughed. "Anyway, you can tell your controller that I come in peace... Unless... is this thing transmitting a live feed?" She took hold of Abigail's helmet and pressed her face against the visor. "Hellooo? Is anyone listening?"

Abigail gently pushed the alien away and removed her helmet, realising that her armoured appearance would look strange to an off-worlder. "I'm... not a robot." She smirked. "My name's Abigail, I'm a human. And... you are...?"

The alien looked stunned for a moment after Abigail removed her helmet, staring unblinkingly. It was a look Abigail got a lot from guys in bars, before they came over and started flirting with her. The only difference was the alien's adorable blush, causing her cheeks to turn a darker shade of grey. She quickly snapped out of it, and stood to attention.

"Pleased to meet you, civilian! The name's Jet 2L7 Y16! Legendary fighter pilot and... more recently... fugitive from the law..."

"Fugitive from the law...?" Abigail repeated.

Jet rubbed the back of her head, awkwardly. "It's... a long story... There were these defective Gems, sentenced to shatteri... erm... death, and I..."

Suddenly, Jet's eyes widened in sudden realisation and she gasped. She raced the few steps over to her enemies' ships, and stared remorsefully at the contents of the cockpits. She slowly stood up straight, crossed her forearms and pointed her fingertips together. She pursed her lips, and a tear ran down the side of her face. Over the sound of the flames, she could just about be heard, whispering, "Well fought... my friends..."

Abigail was beginning to piece it together. Jet belonged to an alien race whose existence was somehow dependent on the integrity of the gemstones on their bodies. Jet's gem had been undamaged, so she had been able to recover from her injuries after the crash, while her pursuers hadn't been so lucky. Jet's compassion for people who had clearly been trying to kill her, moved Abigail, deeply. She stepped forwards and placed a reassuring hand on the alien's shoulder.

"What will you do now?" She asked her.

"Those two were my escorts while I transported those Gems, they'll be safe now..." She looked gratefully up at the stars. "But all the same, I should probably get back to them..." Jet made a tapping gesture at her ship, and a diamond-shaped screen flickered into life above the wreckage, displaying an indecipherable screen of data. "It's not as bad as it looks... If I can just get some tools, I should be able to..."

As though Jet's ship had a sense of comic timing, it chose that moment to violently detonate, causing a chain reaction which tore all three ships apart and engulfed the crash site in a plume of green flames, which rose into the air, forming a small mushroom cloud. Once her ears stopped ringing, and she blinked the spots out of her eyes, Abigail realised that Jet had tackled her to the ground, and was lying protectively on top of her, her body singed, and her eyes narrowed in pain.

Abigail bit her bottom lip, to keep herself from smiling, knowing she should be sympathetic of Jet's situation, and humbled by her heroism, but the timing of the explosion was deeply ironic. Jet soon let Abigail off the hook by bursting into laughter, and her human associate soon joined in. For several seconds, the duo's rambunctious laughter was the only sound, as the flames simmered, and reduced to embers, until Jet rolled off Abigail, and lay in the dirt next to her, joining her in staring at the stars.

"So..." Jet said, wistfully. "What do you do for fun around here?"

* * *

Hello, dear reader. What you've just read, is the beginning of one of the greatest romance stories ever told, rife with twists, suspense, action, and of course, cute lesbians, one of whom came from outer space. Nevertheless, that isn't _this_ story, because I wasn't there until the end, so here's the short version-

Jet and Abigail formed an instant friendship, which would eventually become love, but in the meantime, Jet needed a purpose in life, now that she was stuck on earth. The two stayed up all night at Abigail's apartment, talking about each of their societies, and by the time the sun rose over the city, Jet had set her Gem on becoming a police officer.

Long story short, she did. Being an alien with unlimited stamina and super strength kind of made up for her knowing almost nothing about earth laws and morality. But of course, anyone who's seen Gotham knows what being a cop in a big city is like (yes, it's exactly like that). On Jet's first day on the force, someone tried to rope her into a crooked protection racket, and a week later, every dirty cop in the city was in the hospital. Before long, the most senior crooked cop on the force tried to get her fired, and Jet responded by kidnapping him, and forcing him to confess to all of his crimes, live on TubeTube.

Meanwhile, Abigail was working her way up her career ladder as a lawyer. This was the early nineties (by the way) so there were more than a few glass ceilings for her to break through, but Abigail was as good at smashing the patriarchy, as Jet was at smashing criminals' bones. Being the fantastic lawyer that she was, she rarely lost a case, and being the shining example of humanity that she was, she never gave a second thought, to clients she knew were guilty.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that these two badass chicks made Empire City a better place for everyone, even though I'm biased, since Abigail and Jet are my mums.

My name is Jayla Mills, but my friends call me JJ. The second J stands for 'Junior' and the first J doesn't stand for 'Jayla'. Like most women, Jet wasn't narcissistic enough to name her child after herself, which is a shame, because Jet is the coolest name ever, right? So, when I was a kid, I liked 'Jet Junior', and now it's JJ.

If you're trying to picture what I look like, picture that punk chick archetype, right down to the lip piercings and sick tattoo sleeves. I have my human mum's luscious, black hair, but I livened it up with some purple streaks. Just above my chest, is my other mum's gem. My mum's explained the logistics of a human-Gem hybrid as best she can, but it's difficult, since I'm the only one of my kind (I mean, I'm not. I thought I was at the start of the story, but more on that later). For me though, I still like to think of space mum as her own entity, and it's reassuring to look down, and know that she's always here with me.

Between them, they left a pretty difficult legacy to live up to. Even though mum always says that self-worth needn't be tied to wealth and success (easy for her to say, amirite?) I still worry about not meeting my potential, but maybe that's how everyone with an assortment of alien superpowers feels? Especially when they work in a coffee shop...

So, to recap- my name is JJ Mills, the 25-year-old Gem-human hybrid from Empire City, and I'm on a mission to save the world! Or at the very least, make rent this month...


	2. 9 till 5

"Twenty dollars." Tony bartered.

"What are you, chicken?" I teased. "Thirty!"

"Twenty..."

"Tell you what, I'll bet forty against twenty and... I'll do it with my eyes closed!"

I grinned tauntingly at Tony, while he frowned silently, until he sighed and shook my hand. It was a dull evening at the coffee shop, we'd gone a few minutes without a customer, and my manager and I were entertaining ourselves by wagering on my control of my gem powers. I was standing behind the counter in my apron, and faced the brick wall at the back of the shop, on which a dartboard hung, riddled with large lacerations, as though it had had several things much larger than darts thrown at it.

I closed my eyes and reached up to my chest. My gem sparkled, and a glittery, black boomerang appeared in my hand. I exhaled slowly, envisioning the dart board, and swung with my hand. I heard the whizzing sound, as my boomerang cleaved through the air, and arched between the shop's support beam, and a dull thud, as it hit its mark.

I opened my eyes, jumped on the spot, and cheered, "Yes!"

It was a bullseye. The boomerang had pierced the dartboard in the dead centre. As I stopped jumping up and down, though, my boomerang dissipated, leaving the lower half of the dart board to break off and fall to the floor.

I cringed apologetically, but nevertheless, held the palm of my hand out to Tony. "Bullseye! Pay up!"

Tony nodded acceptingly, and took out his wallet. "Alright... Forty dollars, minus... shall we say... fifteen for the dartboard?"

I gasped indignantly. "Oh, come on! You challenged me to do it!"

"And you accepted, making you responsible for your actions, and their consequences." He smiled sweetly, while he placed twenty-five dollars into my hand.

Tony's a sweetheart, really. He's like forty, and has a pretty big build, which makes most people think he's mean and scary, but he's really not. He's a pretty good role model, teaching me the values of personal responsibility and casual gambling and whatnot, and he has a teenage kid who stops by sometimes. He's kind of a brat, but I was a teenager once, I get it.

It's just as well, Tony's so sweet, otherwise I'd be tempted to cheat him out of his money at card games, with my future vision. Yes, I have future vision, but before you get excited, it's not as useful as it sounds. Apparently, some Gems can see way into the future, like clairvoyants, but they're super rare. My Gem mum was a pilot, and Gems of her cut, can see a split second into the future when they concentrate, buying them time to react, making it useful for aerial combat, and cheap card tricks. I'm pretty open about being a Gem hybrid, but I usually keep that detail to myself. Sometimes it weirds people out, or triggers existential crises, or makes them reluctant to play card games with me.

Finally, the long work day ground to a conclusion, and Tony let me go. Armed with twenty-five dollars of disposable income, I stopped by my favourite pizza place on my way to my apartment, and bought an extra-large pizza with pineapple on half. Before you grab your torches and pitchforks, the pineapple was for my roommate, she's one of 'them'.

Our apartment isn't as big as you'd want a two-person dwelling to be. My mum often offers to help me pay rent for a better place, and I know she can afford it, but I'm no freeloader. Our place is on the eighth floor, below some people who have wooden floors, meaning we sometimes have to bang on the ceiling and shout at them to keep it down, like old ladies, but honestly, we could do a lot worse, noise wise, in the big city. The apartment is really just a living room/kitchen, the former only having room for a small couch and TV, a bathroom with a standing shower and no bath, and a couple of tiny bedrooms. In a place this small, you need to live with someone you get along with perfectly, lest you bludgeon each other to death with magical gem weapons. Enter Mandy.

Mandy and I met in elementary school when we were kids. Obviously, little kids almost always get along, given the universal love of hide-and-seek and Pokémon cards, but as luck would have it, mine and Mandy's relationship was a keeper. The first time I summoned my boomerang was actually because of her. I was ten, and my mum was dropping me off at school, and we saw this big kid following her around, trying to push her over. While my mum was getting ready to have a stern talk with the boy, I was filled with a burning desire for something to throw at his head, and just like that, I was holding a boomerang, which, a second later, sent him sprawling to the playground floor.

Even after Mandy and I hit puberty, and adopted separate subcultures, our friendship endured. While I took the mantle of the edgy goth, she got herself bottlecap glasses and the proud label of 'nerd'. Her glasses and freckles make her look kind of like the nerdy girl from Scooby-Doo, she's adorable. We tried taking our relationship to the next level when we were sixteen. We kissed once, and agreed it was weird. These days I'm dating a guy called Andrew, and she's flirting with a girl online who may or may not be a fifty-year-old man, to be determined.

I let myself into the flat, to find Mandy sitting upright on the couch, with a book in her hands, and a movie playing quietly on the TV. Mandy likes to occupy her subconscious mind, I think it's an autism thing. I collapsed onto the sofa and put my head on Mandy's lap, and the pizza box on my belly.

"Honey, I'm home!" I loudly announced.

Before Mandy returned my greeting, she flared her nostrils, and finally looked up from her book, noticing the pizza for the first time.

She gasped joyously. "Hey!"

I smirked and then pouted, jokingly. "Are you happy to see me... or the pizza?"

Mandy stroked my face comfortingly, and grabbed a slice from the god-forsaken pineapple half, with her other hand. "Both of you." She quickly answered.

"So... 'ow 'as 'ork?" Mandy asked, through her third mouthful.

"It was... a coffee shop..." I sighed.

"That bad?"

"It was so boring!" I groaned, loudly. "I don't know how Tony survived that line of work for so long!"

"Because he... isn't... overqualified..." Mandy said, in a teacher-like voice, tapping on my gem. "You're way too cool to work in a place like that."

We had this conversation a lot. Mandy often pushed me to realise the potential my biology offered me. She and my mum often ganged up on me when we all get together.

"You've got mad potential, JJ! With your skills, you could be..."

"A circus freak?" I interrupted, with a smile.

Mandy stroked my hair. "If that's what your heart is telling you, you go for it! But your mouth is telling me you don't want to serve people coffee for the rest of your life."

No one likes talking about what they're doing with their life, especially when the answer is clearly 'nothing', so after I finished my slice, I changed the subject. "How was class?" Mandy attends the University of Empire City, studying archaeology. She's yet to deny that her enthusiasm stemmed wholly from her enjoyment of classic Tomb Raider games.

"It was fun!" Mandy replied. "We're still on Mayan architecture and artwork and my professor was telling us about..."

Mandy was cute when she was enthusiastic, and she would talk my ear of about her studies at the littlest provocation, however, my significantly lesser interest in archaeology often made it difficult for me to follow the things she told me. She often made me feel bad, when she referred to something she had said earlier, and I had no clue what she was talking about.

After Mandy finished telling me about her day, she coerced me into talking more about my career prospects. An obvious choice would be to use my superhuman strength to fight crime, like my space mum had, but I had none of her military instincts for following orders and rules, which left me somewhat back at square one. Maybe circus freak really was the way to go?

Eventually, I called it a day, and went to bed, as always, long before Mandy did, leaving her to stay up with her book. All in all, it had been a typically dull day in an increasingly stale routine, and so far as I knew, there were several more on their way... how wrong I was...

* * *

It was the lunchtime rush, the next day. Tony and I were hectic as ever, serving the long line of people in need of a midday caffeine boost. While darting in between the counter and the coffee machine, I spotted Mandy coming in the door. She often stopped by to say hello, and enjoy discounted coffee on her lunch break from classes, but I sensed something was different today. She clutched a large book and a binder to her chest, and had an urgent look in her eye. Nevertheless, she waited patiently in the queue, for the counter.

"Hi Mandy." I said, once she reached the front of the queue. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I need to talk to you!" She said, quickly.

"Is it urgent? I'm kinda busy, dude." I said, sympathetically.

"Sort of..." Mandy replied, pursing her lips and hopping on the spot, anxiously.

Obviously, I'd happily tell a dozen angry, caffeine-deprived customers to get stuffed, if Mandy desperately needed emotional support, but I suspected she didn't.

I cocked my head, sternly. "Is this one of those things you really _want_ to talk about, but can actually wait?"

Mandy sighed, defeated. "Yeah..."

The man in the queue behind Mandy huffed irritably. "Excuse me, I'm in a bit of a hurry. Will you young ladies please wrap this up?" He asked politely.

Well actually, he didn't ask that politely at all... or say please... and those weren't even close to his actual words, but I'm paraphrasing, in case there are kids reading this.

Tony instantly stopped what he was doing, stepped out from behind the counter, and forcefully escorted the man out by the shoulder, in spite of his indignant protests. "Sir, please leave. We don't want your business here..."

A couple of customers who had children with them voiced their approval, and someone clapped halfheartedly.

"Thanks Tony!" I called, as he made his way back to the counter.

"That's okay, but please do get back to work." Tony replied. "Mandy, stop distracting her."

Mandy pursed her lips in frustration, but wordlessly made her way over to a table by the window, where she began leafing through her book, and binder. Eventually, the flow of customers slowed to a more manageable rate, and Tony let me leave the counter, to find out what Mandy wanted.

I joined her at her table, with two cardboard cups. "I made you tea, because you seem agitated." I explained.

"Thanks..." Mandy replied, without looking up from her book.

She took a cautious sip of her steaming beverage, before finding the page she had been looking for.

"Right, so, you remember me telling you about the Keystone Ruins?" Mandy asked.

I actually did remember that. It was a temple in the Keystone state, which predated colonialism, but was unlike anything ever constructed by the native Americans. There were countless theories amongst archeological scholars, as to who had built it, and when. I nodded, in confirmation.

"Well I was doing some research on it, this morning, and look at these pictograms that have been recorded on the walls there!"

Mandy showed me a two-page spread, in her book, featuring several lines of pictures, depicting people of all shapes, sizes and colours, some holding weapons, some not, but one thing they all had in common, was that they each had a small object somewhere on their body, most of them represented as circles, or tiny diamonds. My eye soon fell upon a person with a small oblong at the base of their neck. I looked down at my gem, in the same place.

"Are these..." I began.

"Gems!" Mandy finished, excitedly.

"But... why would Gems have been here, however many hundreds of years ago this was, building temples?" I asked. "I thought my mum was the first Gem to come to earth. If they've been here that long, why don't we know about it? Why didn't she know?"

I worried for a moment, that my space mum had lied to my earth mum. Certainly, she had been mysterious, and there were dozens of questions I'd ask her if we were ever able to talk, but I was certain that my mums loved each other very much, and that Jet would have mentioned if she'd known that Gems had been to earth before.

"I don't know, but I have a million more questions!" Mandy said. "I think we should go there today! I can do some research for my thesis, and you might be able to find out more about your people!"

It was certainly tempting, but today?

"That sounds good, but don't you think we should make a whole day of it? Keystone is like three hours away by bus."

"Or one hour away by motorcycle..." Mandy replied, suggestively.

I looked at her, accusingly. "Mandy... is this just a ploy to get me to give you a ride on my mum's bike?"

Mandy gasped defensively. "I would never... I mean... it's like 10% that, maximum."

I stared at Mandy some more. "You've already asked her for permission, haven't you?"

Mandy grinned. "She's really excited for you to learn about Gems."

I rolled my eyes, endearingly. "We'll leave tomorrow morning."


	3. Jayla Mills and the Temple of Danger

"This is so exciting! I want you two to text me a lot, and send me _lots_ of pictures!"

Bright and early the next morning, Mandy and I went to my mum's house, on the outskirts of the city, to prepare for our trip. Mum was buzzing around the house, filling a backpack with things we would need, including food, water, a first-aid kit, portable chargers for our phones and some high-power torches. Mandy and I sat at the table in the kitchen, eating breakfast, while she worked.

"Mum... if Gems really have been here for hundreds of years... do you think mum had known about it?" I asked. It had been bothering me since the previous day.

"I can tell you for a fact, that she didn't." Mum immediately reassured me. "Your mum had never even heard of this planet before she crashed here. She picked it at random, out of a list of Gem-free planets in her database. If Gems were here, they were probably castaways, like she was."

Eventually, the three of us made our way into the garage, where Veronica was waiting for us, alongside mum's more sensible, four-seater car, which she doesn't love enough to assign a name to. Space mum had salvaged what she could from the wreckage of her ship, and had used it to make modifications to mum's bike, allowing it to travel at speeds which would be lethal to anyone without the reaction times of a Jet.

Mum pulled me into a tight hug and kissed my cheek. "Be careful, okay?"

Mandy got a hug too, before we both donned helmets, and she climbed onto Veronica, behind me, and wrapped her arms around my waist. With a roar from the bike, we shot out of the garage, and were on our way. I've always loved driving mum's bike, and Mandy's always loved riding it with me. When I was much younger, and had only just gained my motorcycle license, mum was very reluctant to let me borrow Veronica, fearing for both of our safeties, and more than once, Mandy and I had snuck into the garage and borrowed it anyway, getting in massive amounts of trouble. I guess her concerns were reasonable. Like most teenagers, I was pretty reckless. She's much more trusting, now that I'm older, though.

Veronica zoomed down the highway, out of the city, and through the sprawling countryside beyond. I occasionally engaged Jet's upgrades, giving the bike a burst of speed, accompanied by a blast of green flames from the exhaust, but I didn't put my foot down. Even though I could handle the bike at full speed, thanks to my future vision, I didn't want to frighten Mandy or get stopped by the police.

With just a couple of stops for snacks and to rest our muscles, we arrived at the Keystone Ruins barely forty minutes after leaving. We were a few minutes away from a small town, down a very quiet road. After the rumbling of Veronica's engine died down, an eerie silence fell, save for the quiet chirping of birds and insects, in the surrounding fields. It was clear that the area had been something of a tourist trap once upon a time, but people had since lost interest. There was a low, barbed wire fence encircling the site, with a wooden gate that Mandy and I climbed over. Several picnic tables were dotted around, along with the litter said picnickers had left, and a rusted, decrepit and forgotten snack cart sat gloomily in a corner, in which we found a family of possums.

The ruins themselves, primarily featured a large pyramid, easily large enough to contain mum's house. As it rose upwards, from the ground, it became rapidly narrower, at seemingly random intervals. Surrounding the structure, were elaborately carved pillars, and imposing statues of what were clearly Gems. If the subjects' bizarre hairdos weren't enough to give away their species, the prominent gemstones on their bodies were helpful clues.

"This is amazing!" Mandy declared, as she raced around with her phone, taking pictures. "It's nothing like any architecture I've ever studied!"

"Probably because you're not from outer space..." I joked, as I strolled towards the entrance.

The two of us made our way towards the pyramid's entrance, Mandy still darting around, taking everything in much more energetically than I did. She joined me in front of the ruins, and frowned, curiously.

"Hey JJ... I've been thinking about what your mum said earlier... Don't you think this is a bit elaborate to be the work of outcasts? I mean, your space mum didn't go around building pyramids or anything."

"Yeah..." I agreed. I'd been thinking the same thing. "I mean, there are lots of different kinds of Gems, maybe the ones that built this just enjoyed building stuff?"

We looked at each other, silently contemplating the problem, before crossing the threshold, and investigating the inside. The interior of the pyramid was gloomy and humid, and resembled the dungeon-like interiors of the pyramids in Egypt... based on cartoons I've seen, anyway. At the top of the room, more of the pictograms Mandy had shown me, snaked their way around us. And immediately in front of the entrance, a wide, flat, white disk sat on the floor, around the size of a trampoline.

As Mandy and I walked across the disk, I felt a shiver run across my body, starting at my gem, and running up to my scalp and down to my toes.

I shuddered. "Did you feel that...?" I quickly asked Mandy.

Mandy had been staring up at the pictograms, but turned to look at me. "Feel what?"

I hesitated. Of course she hadn't, the reaction had come from my gem, but what had it been reacting to? "Nothing..."

We spent a couple more minutes examining the room, specifically the pictograms. They seemed to tell a story, which the two of us slowly pieced together. Apparently, some kind of pink Gem had come to earth with something of an entourage, or bodyguards (the illustrations made it hard to determine their numbers), and had then gone into battle, against another pink Gem, and her associates.

"It's hard to tell the scale of the conflict..." Mandy noted. "It could be a tiny battle, or even symbolize a one-on-one duel, or it could have been a full-fledged war. But your mum would definitely have heard of earth if a war had been fought here, right?"

I shook my head. "I think this temple was before space mum's time. My other mum told me once, that Jets were a relatively new kind of Gem, they had to make, to keep up with their faster, more responsive ships. Gems can live forever, if they're lucky, but space mum was less than two hundred years old when she crashed here."

Before we could delve further into the story, the pyramid told, we both jumped, as a stone slab descended over the door behind us, plunging us into blackness, before a series of crystals, set into the walls, began to glow, bathing us in cold, blue light, and sending shadows dancing up the walls.

"JJ...?" Mandy said, fearfully.

From within the walls of the pyramid, a grinding sound, like the workings of some vast machine, began to sound.

"What's happening...?" I was scared too, but tried to sound confident, for Mandy's sake, as the one of us with super powers. "People used to come in here all the time! Why's this happening now?"

"Maybe this is the first time a Gem's been in here, for a few hundred years?" Mandy suggested.

Opposite the door, a second stone slab slid upwards, revealing a small alcove, containing some kind of stone mannequin, with narrow, spindly limbs, connecting thick, club-like hands and feet. There was a circular hole in the figure's torso, but behind it, a square, green gem rose, and slid into place. The gem shone bright green, and a second later, so did the figure's eyes, the only features on its otherwise plain, stone face.

Two narrow katanas, like something out of a samurai movie, rose from the floor by the thing's feet, and it grabbed them in its dexterous, stone fingers, before leaping out of its alcove, and slashing at us. I reacted so instinctively, it was as though my boomerangs leapt from my gem, into my hands, of their own accord. The four weapons collided with a crash of hard-light on metal. The stone automaton reared back and slashed with one of its swords, and I collapsed backwards to evade, before rolling clear of the second attack.

My heart pounded painfully against my chest as I swayed, ducked and countered the robot's attacks. I'd been in many fights before, of course, with school bullies, creeps in bars, a couple of drug dealers (I used to be into marijuana, don't judge), and, for complicated reasons, a police officer at a rave, once, but this was the first time I'd had to fight so furiously, against something hellbent on killing me, and with the slightest slip-up, it would get its wish.

My future vision didn't let me down, as I moved on instinct, constantly seeing near futures where I lost a limb, or my head, and acted accordingly, all the while trying to keep myself between the murderous machine and Mandy. Eventually, I saw an opening, and drove one of my boomerangs between the robot's eyes, backflipped over a swing of one of its swords, and jump kicked my weapon further into its head, sending a fissure through the robot, almost breaking its cranium in two.

The robot stumbled backwards, and its eyes flickered for a moment. I was almost ready to relax, when it shot to attention and resumed its onslaught. I barely reacted in time to block its new attack.

"JJ, it's a Gem robot!" Mandy urgently pointed out. "And if it's anything like a real Gem, that means its brain isn't in its head!"

I looked at the glowing, green gem at the core of the robot's being, and my eye's widened in realisation. I hurled my boomerang sideways, sending it spinning around the outside of the room. The robot's head span backwards, following the weapon, lest it hit its gem on its return. I was flattered that the robot thought I could pull off a throw like that, while in reality, I probably couldn't. When the robot's head was turned completely away, I lunged forward, drove my second boomerang into its chest, and scooped out its gem like an avocado pit, with a burst of green sparks. The robot dropped its swords, its eyes went dim, and it slowly collapsed to the floor.

I doubled over slightly and caught my breath. "Thanks for the tip..." I nodded at Mandy.

Mandy walked over and nudged my shoulder, playfully. "Thanks for saving my life, Miss Superhero! Since when have you been able to fight like that?"

Before I could answer, a sinister, red light, glowed on the floor, as two perpendicular sets of two red lines, shot across the pyramid, intersecting on the two of us, forming a red square around our feet. Just as I was thinking I should grab Mandy and run, the floor opened up beneath us, and we plummeted down a narrow shaft, and fell painfully onto a rough, stone floor.

"Are you okay...?" I asked Mandy, after we were both done groaning in pain.

"Slight bruising to my shins and dignity..." Mandy replied. "But I'll live."

Suddenly, and without warning, the top of the shaft was blocked off by another stone slab, plunging us into inky blackness. I quickly fished out one of the torches my mum had packed, and looked around for a way out. The shaft was featureless. There was no helpful, albeit cryptic instruction manual for escaping, like one might find in an Indiana Jones movie.

"JJ!" Mandy snapped, quite suddenly, her voice filled with panic.

I rounded on her, and followed her gaze upwards. The stone panel sealing up from the rest of the pyramid had begun to descend. It was slow at first, but the moment I noticed it, it plummeted down towards us, like a runaway train.


	4. The Invitation

A certain conversation was at the front of my mind.

"Almost all Gems are physically stronger than humans." My mum had told me, a long time ago. "But there are some kinds of Gems, who are so strong, they can lift mountains!"

"Wooow!" A five-year-old me had gasped, my eyes twinkling with wonder. "Was mum one of those Gems?"

"Well... no." Mum admitted. "Your other mum was a pilot, so no one ever needed her to be strong, they needed her to be quick and smart."

I pouted in disappointment. "So, I won't have super strength when I'm older?"

"Well not the mountain-moving variety, but don't you think super-reflexes are way cooler?"

Yes, my Gem powers were pretty cool, and almost made me a shoe-in in a fight with a robot, but as I stood at the bottom of the shaft, under the pyramid, collapsed to one knee under the pressure of the stone plate I held above my head, which was furiously trying to crush us, I couldn't say I wouldn't trade them in for a little more strength.

The stone floor had fractured beneath my feet, the second my hands met the plummeting rock. My muscles immediately screamed out in disapproval, and sweat quickly began to make its way down my brow.

Mandy looked around our grave-like confines desperately, for a way out, before mimicking my position, pressing up against the crushing mechanism. I appreciated her effort, but I didn't even feel the weight she was saving me, it was so slight.

"Mandy..." I grunted, through clenched teeth. "That's... not... helping...!"

"I'm sorry! I... I... I don't know what to do! Th... there's no stopping mechanism! We can't... We can't..."

I saw tears streaming down Mandy's face. I'd probably be crying too, except my emotions were focused on the pain coursing through my body, as I struggled to keep from collapsing under the pressure being forced down on me.

Since I had stopped the descending stone slab, the pyramid's internal mechanisms had been making sounds of groaning protest (like it was the real victim here), but just as I was approaching my limit, a series of new sounds came from above us.

First, there was a loud, jingling noise, like the sounds of a wind chime, compressed to one, solid note, then there were several thunderous crashes, which I felt reverberating through the structure, down towards us. After the third of fourth crash, I felt the stone slab shudder and then, to my immense relief, cease pressing down on us.

I cried out in relief, collapsed, face-first to the floor, and hyperventilated. Mandy dropped to her knees next to me, and made an awkward gesture which was half hug, half patting me on the back.

"You're amazing! Thank you so much! You saved our lives!"

I took the compliment, mostly because I was too wiped out for words, but I felt like some of the thanks should go to whoever had caused all the ruckus above us. Suddenly, the stone slab lurched upwards several feet, with a groan from the mechanism. It happened again and again, shifting several feet at a time, as though someone was pulling it up with a rope. When it reached the top of the shaft, something punched through it, sending several small pebbles raining down on us, and ripped it away like a sheet of tin foil, bathing us in the faint glow of the blue crystals in the main chamber.

By this point, some of my strength had returned to me, so I stood up, had Mandy climb into my arms and leapt up the length of the shaft, to meet with our saviour. At first, I thought she was a human, albeit a very tall one, especially for a woman, and with enormous thighs and a comparatively tiny waist, then I noticed her skin tone. Although her skin looked human in the dim, blue light of the pyramid, when I squinted, I noticed it was more maroon. Possibly the most alien thing about her, though, was her enormous, square afro, and reflective visor, in which I saw myself, looking up at her in confusion. Finally, I noticed the gem in the palm of her left hand, and believed the mystery to be solved, that is, until I saw the second gem in her right palm, and I was confused again...

Behind her, there was a gaping hole in the pyramid wall, revealing a set of enormous cogs, many of which had been torn out, and cast to the surrounding floor. I assumed that was where she had forcefully reversed the crushing mechanism.

"Afternoon." The Gem (Gems?) cordially greeted.

"Thank you so much for saving us!" Mandy quickly said.

I was grateful too, but not as much as I was curious. "What... what are you?" I asked. I hoped that, since she was clearly some kind of Gem, she wouldn't be offended by human social faux pas.

As I asked my question, the Gem gave a silent gasp, her visor pointing at my chest. She removed her visor, and Mandy and I vocally reacted to the sight of three eyes, a red and blue one, where one would expect to see eyes, and a purple one in the middle of her forehead. All three of her eyes were locked on my gem.

"I... I could ask you the same..." She said. Even though I could tell she was surprised, her voice was neutral and calm.

There was a moment of silence, as we all thought about the two questions, and eventually I decided to be the first one to provide an answer.

"I'm... Jayla..." I said. "I'm half human and half Jet.

After another pause, the Gem showed me the palms of her hands. "Garnet. Fusion." She answered my question.

Obviously, I knew that Garnet was a kind of Gem, just like Jet, but what was a fusion? I thought the question to myself, then asked it out loud.

"You've never met a fusion before." Garnet noted.

"I've never even met another Gem before..." I elaborated.

Garnet's eyebrows narrowed sympathetically. Rather than reply, Garnet's form began to glow bright white. She shrank, and her body separated into two, amorphous white blobs, which quickly took humanoid form. The light faded, revealing two short Gems, a red one, with Garnet's afro, and a blue one, with a fringe covering half of her face.

The blue Gem stepped forwards, and held her hand out, expectantly. "Hand me your cell phone, please."

Confused, I did. She unlocked it somehow, opened my contacts list, and began entering a new one. "After you're finished here, you'll want to go home, and process all of this. When you're ready, call this number and ask for Garnet, and you can arrange to meet the rest of us."

"Wh... how are..." I began, confused and a little offended by the Gem's presumptions.

"Because I can see the future." She explained, handing back my phone.

The blue Gem seemed cold, distant, and unemotional. In contrast, the red Gem was grinning happily. She waved at us, and mouthed the word 'Hi!'

The two Gems joined hands and, with another gleam of light, Garnet was back. I was beginning to understand fusion. But I still had many questions. Could any two Gems do it? Why was Garnet doing it? It was easier to imagine Garnet breaking down the pyramid walls and saving us, than the two smaller Gems, but she wasn't performing any acts of physical heroism now... Why had she fused again?

"The... rest of us?" I asked, instead of asking more about fusion.

"I'm a member of a team called the Crystal Gems." Garnet explained. She studied our faces for a reaction, and when we didn't give one, she continued. "We protect the earth from Gem-related dangers... There's another Gem hybrid on our team."

Now that got a rise out of us.

"What?" Mandy gasped.

"I'm not the only one!?" I added.

"We thought _he_ was..." Garnet said, agreeing that it was surprising.

"This is unreal... there's two of us?" I breathed.

"At least..." Garnet elaborated, with a thoughtful frown.

Mandy looked at me, and saw my troubled expression. It was somewhat daunting to think that there was an indeterminate number of other Gems and hybrids already on earth, who I'd never known about. She squeezed my hand comfortingly. "That... blue Gem said you might want a while to deal..." She reminded me. "Do you wanna go home?"

I looked at Mandy, and then at Garnet, who had conjured a new visor with a wave of her fingers. "Yeah... Thanks for the offer, Garnet. I'll be in touch."

Garnet smiled slightly, and nodded in confirmation. "See you then."

Garnet walked over to the pyramid's entrance, which was still sealed shut. She clenched her right fist and, just like my boomerangs did, a thick, red gauntlet materialised on it, with which she delivered an explosive punch, which blasted through the pyramid's door, flooding the entrance with sunlight.

I wondered how Garnet had gotten into the pyramid, without breaking the door on her way in. I didn't wonder for long. She stepped onto the flat, white disk, gave a cheesy grin, waved her hand and said, "Bye."

A column of white light exploded upwards, engulfing the fusion, accompanied by the same wind chime sound I'd heard earlier. When the light faded, Garnet was gone. Mandy and I stared at the space where she had been for almost a minute.

"Whoa..." I eventually said.

"Yeah..." Mandy agreed.

* * *

We took Veronica back to my mum's and we gave her a heavily abridged version of what had happened, to keep her from worrying. In the new telling, the robot had simply tried to detain us with big, grabby hands, and after we destroyed it, Garnet had simply wandered into the ruins and coincidentally ran into us. Mum shared all of our reactions; curiosity as to what fusion was, and astonishment that there was another Gem hybrid. Mandy and mum both expected me to call Garnet and arrange a visit as soon as possible, but I didn't.

I've always wanted to meet other Gems, and if I'd ever dared to believe that I wasn't the only hybrid, I'd have wanted to meet them too, but it's a curious thing, getting something you've wanted, after waiting as long as I have. You get used to the dream you've been building in your head, and it's scary, making that dream a reality, because for all you know, it won't be nearly as good as you thought it'd be, and then you won't have either.

What if Gems turn out to be assholes? And they're like evil aliens, hellbent on world domination? That would explain why my amazing Gem mum had had to flee to earth. Or, almost as bad, what if Gems were amazing? What if this other hybrid was like a comic book superhero, using his Gem powers to protect humanity, and meanwhile, I'm working at a coffee shop?

It was a difficult assortment of emotions, and mum and Mandy had trouble understanding, but eventually, I got them to lay off. I didn't end up calling Garnet on the day I met her, nor for a few days after, but I would eventually. At first, I put her off because of the aforementioned jitters, but then... Well let's just say that something came up...


	5. Date Night

It was three days later, and a moment hadn't yet passed, without me thinking about Garnet and her offer. Everyone I mentioned it to said I should call her and meet her friends, and I would... I just wasn't ready yet... I sat, cross-legged on my couch, sketching on a pad, with a pencil. My sketch was of a hypothetical Gem hybrid. He was a twenty-year-old guy, pretty ripped (but in a realistic, handsome way, not the over-the-top comic book way) and had a triangular Onyx gem just above his eyes, making him look like he was scowling. He was wielding a jet-black scythe, he was in the process of projecting from his gem. I liked drawing. I had a DeviantArt page and sometimes got commissions, which helped with rent.

For the past half an hour, I'd heard Mandy's muffled voice, coming from her bedroom door. While I was trying hard not to eavesdrop, I wondered who she was talking to, since hardly anyone uses phones as phones anymore. I assumed she was just playing an online game, but she usually did that in the living room. Eventually, the conversation ended, and Mandy left her room, with her laptop tucked under her arm, and a cheesy smile on her face.

She plopped down on the couch next to me. "Hey, that's good!" She commented on my sketch. "Who's that?"

"Nathaniel, but his friends call him Natty." I answered. "His mum was a Gem warrior, and his dad works in a travelling carnival. He uses his Gem powers to hunt down crooked politicians and gang leaders, like the Punisher."

Mandy frowned in confusion. "Can Gems have babies with human men?"

I shrugged. "Maybe."

Mandy took a deep breath, I could tell from the moment she'd entered the living room, that she'd done so with something important to say, and I sensed it coming.

"So, I know you've got a lot on your plate right now... and... and I don't wanna distract you or anything... If you just want to focus on your Gem stuff then..."

I smirked, and stopped her before she started rambling. "Mandy, what is it you want?"

Mandy grinned excitedly. "I just video-chatted with Emily! And she wants to meet in person!"

Emily is the girl Mandy had been flirting with online, I was glad to hear that she was, in fact, a girl.

"She's sooo cool and pretty and she's amazing and I love her!" Mandy continued, with a huge grin.

"Wow, breaking out the L word already? That was quick."

Mandy punched my arm, playfully. "You know what I mean!"

It didn't take me long to piece together what Mandy wanted from me. "And because you think she's so great, you're super nervous about meeting her on your own?"

Mandy collapsed backwards on the couch in defeat. "Yeah... I was thinking you and Andrew could come, and we'd make it a double date! You could be my wingwoman?"

"That sounds like fun." I agreed. "Besides, I need to know if this young lady is good enough for you!"

"If anything, she's way out of my league." Mandy laughed.

"Well that's not possible, because you're amazing." I smiled sweetly.

We both laughed, as we got our phones out, and texted our dates. We made casual plans to have lunch the next day, and take it from there, and soon got confirmation.

* * *

I'd known Connor for a few years. He works at a tattoo parlor with his dad, which is where we met. He did about half of my tattoos. He's a very talented artist. I don't know if some people would think it's weird to go out with your regular tattoo artist, like dating your therapist or something, but I don't care, he's a sweetheart.

He's pretty skinny, and a fair bit taller than I am. I barely come up to his shoulders, making him look weird crouching down so I can kiss him, in public. He shares my enthusiasm for hair dye, with red tips at the end of his sleek, black fringe, like an edgy vampire. He likes my lip piercings, but never wanted any facial piercings of his own, except his earrings. I love his look, he totally pulls it off.

We sat at a table in front of a café, Andrew next to me and Mandy opposite us. It was still a few minutes before we'd agreed to meet Emily, but Mandy had been very agitated to leave that morning, after spending almost two hours getting ready. She modelled what felt like hundreds of outfits for me, and finally settled on one of my leather skirts with fishnet stockings and her nicest, dark red jacket. She even put on lipstick, which I couldn't remember her doing since we were kids, playing dress up. She looked stunning, and I was quick to tell her.

We arrived at the café almost half an hour early, and I had texted Andrew accordingly. We'd passed the time talking about our recent run in with Garnet.

"So... Gemstones can produce hardlight bodies, but she's like a communal creation of two Gems?" Andrew recapped. He was holding my sketchbook, looking at a sketch of Garnet, in between the two smaller Gems that made her up.

"Fusion." I confirmed. "I guess it never came up between my mums, since space mum thought she was the only Gem on earth..."

"Wow, how would that even work? Like... does one of them control the left arm, and the other the right, or what?"

"No idea. I'll ask, for you, when I see her." I offered.

"So, when are you going?" Andrew asked.

"I... look... soon! I don't know..." I said, trying not to sound confrontational, but I had been asked that question a lot, in the past days.

Awkward silence prevailed for a moment. Mandy had been paying relatively little attention to our conversation. She was sitting sideways in her chair, looking left and right, along the street, anxiously.

"You okay, Mandy?" Andrew asked.

"Yeah, I... Should we have arrived early?" Mandy asked, with a nervous cringe. "Maybe we should leave, and come back, fashionably late? Oh, but what if she thinks she's in the wrong place, or I stood her up? Or you could stay and... and..."

"Mandy, breathe." I sternly instructed, with a smile.

"It's gonna be fine, no one actually cares about that little stuff, on a first date." Andrew reassured her. "I mean, you're not worried about what she means, by showing up on time, or whatever, right?"

"That's because she's cooler than me!" Mandy hissed, quietly. "Her coolness is established! I'm still on probation!"

"Mandy, stop saying that!" I said, commandingly. "You're awesome, you hear me?"

"Yeah..."

"What are you?"

"Awesome..."

Mandy's endeared smile was quickly replaced by excitement with a trace of alarm, as she looked over mine and Andrew's shoulder. She sank down to the table, hiding behind us. "She's here! Don't look!"

We immediately looked, and quickly figured out who Emily was. It was clear how anyone could be intimidated by her, be they prospective romantic partners, or enemies. She was the kind of woman who showed up in movies, walking in slow motion, to the sound of blaring rock and roll. She wore a black shirt with torn away sleeves, black jeans, and heavy boots. Her head was shaved bald on one side, and her remaining hair was dyed neon green and combed over one of her eyes. The half of her face which was visible, boasted several earrings and a nostril piercing, and she had tattoo sleeves like mine, only slightly edgier and less colourful. I thought _I_ was a punk, but this chick made me look like a cheerleader.

Mandy stood up, as Emily approached, and they greeted each other with a hug.

"Hey! I... I love your outfit, you look amazing!" Mandy said.

"Likewise! Cool lipstick. You look hot." Emily flirtatiously replied.

The two of them took their seats, opposite me and Andrew.

"So, one of you must be Jayla, and the other one, Andrew." Emily joked.

"Hi, I'm Andrew." I smiled, offering Emily a fist bump.

"My friends call me JJ." Andrew said, doing the same.

We all laughed, got to talking, and eventually, one of us went inside and ordered. We soon found out that Emily was a computer programmer, who did IT work for a big research company which she assured us we wouldn't have heard of. I assumed a person would have to have a highly desirable skillset, to get a job at a stuffy corporation, looking like Emily did. Despite my mum raising me to be polite, I gingerly brought this up, and Emily proudly confirmed. In demonstration, and with my permission, she found my email address and hacked into it using only my full name and her phone. Frankly, it was kind of terrifying.

As soon as she had sat down, I'd noticed a thin, leather band, stretching under Emily's vertical hairline, and under her fringe. At first, I'd thought it was some obscure accessory, but when she turned her head, I noticed she was wearing an eyepatch, over the eye her hair covered, like she was really desperate that no one see that eye in particular. Now, the eyepatch I _was_ polite enough not to bring up, that is, until I noticed a faint, flashing light penetrating Emily's hair.

"Erm... Emily? Your eyepatch is bleeping." I awkwardly pointed out.

"Oh, I know..." Emily smirked. She lifted up her fringe and showed us her patch. Rather than a sheet of leather or cloth, her eye was covered in a chunky plastic triangle, featuring a couple of LEDs, and a USB and Micro USB port on the side. "It's Bluetooth. It's flashing because I'm getting a text."

"No way, have you got like a screen under there or something?" Andrew gasped.

Emily laughed. "No, I really do only have one eye, but I figured, if I'm gonna have something strapped to my face all the time, may as well make something cool, right?"

"That is definitely cool." Mandy agreed. "But... how do you interface with it? I mean, it's not like you can see the beeping..."

"It vibrates in Morse Code." Emily explained. "My aunts want my help with a new diagnostic algorithm, but I told them I had a date today, so they can wait until I get home."

"That is so cool." I noted. "Do you make a lot of gadgets like that?"

Emily filled us in on her various projects, and told some amusing stories of how she had started out, disassembling her toys as a child, with a screwdriver her somewhat neglectful-sounding aunts had let her play with. These days, she was branching out into wireless integration devices like her eyepatch. She showed us one of her rings, which she swore was a tactile sensor, which she could use to control her computer's pointer, and a smartwatch app she had developed, which pinpointed the location of tracking devices.

After she concluded one of her stories, I caught Emily looking at my Gem. She looked up, and noticed me noticing her noticing it. "Cool mod, JJ." She acknowledged. "Where did you get it done?"

"Oh thanks. But it's not a body mod, it's a part of me. One of my mums was an alien Gem, and that's basically her, down there."

Like I said, I'm pretty open about being half-alien, and I'd seen all the reactions. Mostly, people either immediately assumed I was joking, and laughed, or just stared at me like I was strange. Emily fell into the latter camp.

She studied my face for a smirk or a wink, and when I didn't give one, she asked, "Seriously...?"

Normally, this would be where I summoned my boomerang as proof, but I remembered that I was supposed to be Mandy's wingwoman, and I was pulling attention to myself.

I smirked. "Nah, I'm kidding, it's a mod. You know who's a Gem though? This one, am I right?" I nodded at Mandy. "Do you guys talk about her studies?"

Emily's confused look, regarding my Gem and subsequent claims, was immediately replaced by a smile, as she turned to Mandy. "Only all the time! I never thought archaeology could be so interesting! You should seriously be a professor when you graduate!"

Mandy blushed adorably. The date went on without a hitch, we finished lunch and embarked into the city without a destination in mind. Emily took us to one of her favourite computer shops to look at processors, which we tried our hardest to be interested in, but unfortunately weren't, then she took us to a somewhat seedier part of town, to see some street art a friend of hers had done, which I found much more interesting. It was a mural on the side of a building, depicting a woman with purple hair and wings, with a large, European dragon behind her, like a scene from an anime or a fantasy movie. I wasn't enough of a rebel to take my art to the streets, myself, but I certainly enjoyed it.

After that, Mandy took us to the Empire City museum, to show Emily the new Mayan exhibit. I expected Emily to feign interest like we all had at the computer shop, but she hadn't been lying about being interested in history, seeing it through Mandy's eyes. I enjoyed them too, but honestly, it was adorable seeing Emily and Mandy geeking out over the displays, together.

Eventually, the day wore to a close, and Mandy surprised me by accepting Emily's offer to go back to her place. Naturally, I jokingly called her a slut, before wishing her a goodnight, and heading home, by myself.

As I stood in our kitchen, making myself a pasta dinner, I was feeling good. It had been a really fun day, and I felt lucky to have great friends like Mandy and Andrew, and I hoped I'd end up being friends with Emily too. It made me feel less anxious about what Gems turned out to be like. However I felt about Garnet and her friends, I'd always have my well above-average life in Empire City.

I sat on the couch with the pasta bowl in my lap, and flicked through my phone's contact list, before finding the contact labelled 'The Crystal Gems'. I took a deep breath, and hit the call button. I wasn't surprised, a few rings later, when Garnet didn't answer. She had said to ask for her, after all, but I was surprised to hear the voice of a young boy.

"Hello, Steven Universe's phone! Steven speaking!"

I frowned in confusion, this kid's name was 'Steven Universe'? That sounded like the name of a protagonist in a cartoon.

"Hey..." I slowly answered. "I got this number from a Gem... I mean... a fusion called Garnet. Is she there?"

"You're calling for Garnet?" Steven clarified, in a confused voice. "Sure, she's right here."

I heard the sound of a phone being passed over to someone else.

"Jayla." Garnet greeted.

I was off-put, but not surprised that Garnet had known it was me.

"Hi Garnet..." I said. "Erm... I think I'm ready to come and meet you guys."


	6. Welcome to Beach City

It turned out, Garnet and the Crystal Gems lived in a place called Beach City. I had vaguely heard of the place before, but I'd never been. Looking at it on Google Maps, it seemed like 'city' was a generous label, since it featured around thirty buildings, total. Like the Keystone ruins, it was close enough to spend a day there after driving over on Veronica, and be back in time to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but after Mandy off-handedly mentioned the trip to Emily, she offered an alternative.

As it happened, Emily's aunts owned a large RV, the kind that had almost as much floorspace as mine and Mandy's flat, and more home comforts, which they used for field research. This confused me somewhat, since I had assumed from the text Emily had mentioned, that they worked in IT, like she did, but I didn't pry. Emily was confident that she could borrow the RV, and the three of us could spend a few days in Beach City, since apparently it was a popular tourist spot. But of course, before we could accept Emily's generous offer, we had to let her in on Team Gem. Here's how that conversation went-

"So, how come you guys wanna go to Beach City?" Emily asked, after she had shown us the RV, and we'd all taken a seat at its breakfast nook.

Mandy and I shared a look, and a nod.

"Well, you remember when we met, and I made that joke about being half alien?" I asked.

"Yeah...?" Emily replied, with a serious expression.

I braced my hands above the table, and, with a gleam from my Gem, I was holding my boomerangs in a defensive stance.

Emily scrambled backwards in her seat as much as she could. "Holy hell it's true!" She shouted.

I dispersed my weapons and tapped on my Gem. They're called Gems, they're basically just rocks, that project holograms, but also they can have kids by giving up their Gems to a human partner.

Emily stared at me in disbelief as I spoke. "So... what's in Beach City?" She asked.

"Other Gems." I replied. "And apparently, another Gem hybrid, like me."

"There are... there's another one?" Emily asked.

Emily bounced back and accepted the strange situation faster than most people did, and the next day, we were on the road. I was somewhat nervous about such a large vehicle being driven by a one-eyed woman, but Mandy didn't have a driver's license, and the only thing I was licensed to drive was a motorcycle, so I didn't complain. During the car journey, Mandy and I discussed what little we knew about Gems, and what we could expect in Beach City, and when that short conversation ended, we contemplated what else there might be to do in town.

An internet search told us that Beach City had a small, seaside amusement park called Funland, a modest theatre society and, most interestingly, an underground fight ring. Of course, we were most anxious to meet with Garnet and her friends, but it was good to know that Beach City had distractions, should they be needed.

Eventually, Emily parked the RV on a boardwalk overlooking the beach, and facing a cliff with a lighthouse, under which, Garnet had assured me we would find the Crystal Gem's base. We opened the door, and the three of us were greeted by warm sunshine and the salty gust of sea air.

"Oh man, I can't remember the last time I went to the beach!" Emily exclaimed, before running barefoot from the van, vaulting over the boardwalk's handrail, and running towards the ocean.

Mandy laughed, and chased after her, climbing over the rail with somewhat more care. The two of them had changed into beach-appropriate clothes as soon as we'd stopped, Emily into a pair of shorts and a vest, and Mandy into a swimsuit and tie-dye skirt. I'd packed beach clothes too, but for now, my mind was on more Gem-related affairs.

I walked along the length of the beach, towards the cliff, while smirking at Emily and Mandy, who were splashing each other, and laughing gleefully. As I drew nearer though, they ran and caught up with me, falling into step on each side.

"Hey, are you feeling okay?" Mandy asked me, as we walked.

"Nervous?" Emily elabourated.

"Yeah, it's just daunting, you know? I never thought I'd meet another Gem and now... here we are..."

After I trailed off, Mandy took my hand and squeezed reassuringly.

Emily noticed this. "You... wanna hold my hand, too?" She offered.

While Emily's support wasn't as effective as that of my BFF, it was certainly appreciated. I enthusiastically took her hand, and the three of us rounded the cliff-face, and the Crystal Gems' base came into view.

"Oh my god..." Emily gasped.

"No way..." Mandy reacted.

"Wow..." Said I.

Built into the cliff, was a gargantuan statue of a woman's upper body. Not a human woman, but a Gem with eight arms (three of which had crumbled away at the elbow), flowing locks, and a mask covering her forehead. Her Gem was in her chest, in the same place where mine was. I wondered if there were many Gems with inhuman quantities of limbs, or if that was a trait of fusion. There were many places on the statue that could have featured additional Gems, from her towering palm, to her navel, which was concealed by a small house, she cradled in four of her remaining hands.

"She kind of looks like Vishnu, with those extra arms." Mandy said, thoughtfully. Suddenly, she gave a strenuous gasp, like she had just avoided suffocation, and grabbed my arm. "Do you think any earth deities were just Gems which came to earth a long time ago? Oh my god, that would change the way we look at everything!"

It was certainly an interesting theory. I thought of all the religions I knew of, and what I knew about different Gems, to see if anything sounded familiar. It was fun to imagine that Zeus had simply been some overly-sexual Gem with the power to command lightning, who had come to earth, just to embark on a series on increasingly inappropriate misadventures.

While we were all lost in thought, a series of increasing loud thumps made their way in our direction, until they were loud enough to derail our train of thought. The sound was loud, and rapid, like the footsteps of something massive, and with far more than two feet, and we soon found out, to our horror, that that was exactly what it was.

From around the cliff, a bubblegum pink tarantula, the size of an elephant, crawled into view, and over the face of the statue. It had streaks of dark green across its abdomen, and a square, purple Gem on the back of its head. Around its mandibles, were eight blank white eyes. While the three of us were still frozen in shock and alarm, the beast leapt off the statue, and directly at us.

In a flash, I lunged sideways, tackling Mandy out of the spider's path. To my relief, Emily's reactions were just as sharp, and she too had leapt to safety, before the creature landed on the beach, with an explosion of sand. It rotated to face me and Mandy, with a stomping of its many feet, and I braced my boomerangs defensively.

Was this thing a Gem? I remembered my mum saying that Gems could shapeshift, but if she was a Gem, why was she acting so aggressively? If she was a Crystal Gem, then surely Garnet told her we were coming! I cautiously mentioned this to the spider, but it only reacted by snarling, drool dripping from its mandibles, into its pink fur.

While I stared the spider down, Emily leapt onto its back, with a large rock in her hands which, with a dramatic cry of exertion, she drove downwards into its body. The tarantula convulsed in distress, and lurched to the side, sending Emily flying off it. I used the distraction to lunge with my boomerang, attempting to carve the Gem from its body, as I had with the robot, but the creature's head snapped back to face me and with a twitching of its mandibles, it projected a glob of sticky webbing at my hand, propelling me backwards and dispersing my weapon. Of course, I knew that real spiders didn't propel webbing from their mouths, but they weren't gigantic and pink either, so I didn't complain.

I swung my webbing-covered hand, and a trio of boomerangs shot at the spider, colliding with its head and detonating on impact, and forcing it backwards in distress. Taking the window of opportunity, I lunged forwards with a boomerang in my free hand, but as I was about to go in for the kill, the spider crouched down and tackled me, sending me tripping onto its back, before it threw me backwards, towards the cliff. I was about to attack again, when another burst of webbing shot from the correct end of the spider, sticking my waist to the cliffside.

While Emily climbed to her feet, I noticed, with horror, that Mandy was unprotected, and directly in the spider's line of sight. I screamed at her to run and resisted my restraints to no avail, but Mandy seemed petrified, rooted to the spot in fear. The spider lunged at her, and all seemed lost, when a blur of red shot past Emily and in between Mandy and the spider. The spider's collision was met with a flash of pink and a crash of flesh against metal (or hard light against hard light, as it would turn out).

When the pink gleam faded, I saw that a young boy, (around twelve, I guessed) had flown to Mandy's aid, and summoned an enormous pink shield on his forearm, with a rose in the centre, and spiraling vines, expanding outwards. The spider gnawed against the shield ineffectively. The boy was short and a little overweight, with prominent, curly black hair, and a red T-shirt with a star on it.

"Hey there, thanks for coming to visit!" He said, expressing only slight discomfort at having to fend off an enormous spider. "I'm Steven!"

With one last heave, I managed to tear the webbing off my waist and hand, and ran towards the spider, just in case it overcame Steven's shield. I leapt onto its abdomen, and grabbed handfuls of its pink fur, hoping to rodeo it until someone came up with a better plan. Sure enough, the arachnid Gem quickly backed away from Steven, allowing him to disperse his shield, and bucked wildly, while I hung on for dear life.

Emily sprinted over to Steven and Mandy with purpose in her eye. "JJ hang in there! There's something in the RV that might help!" She quickly spun around, placed her hands on Mandy's shoulders, and kissed her cheek. "Be careful, okay?"

Compliantly, I clung to the spider, as it bucked and writhed, trying to throw me off it. Steven attacked by hurling projectile shields, but most were intercepted by the creature's webbing, and the rest did seemingly little damage. Just when I felt like I couldn't hold on any longer, Emily came sprinting down the beach, holding what looked like a pistol, with a small radar dish over the nozzle. Whatever Emily's device did, I guessed I didn't want it done to me. I let go of the spider's fur, and let it throw me clear.

Emily trained the device on the spider, and shouted, "Cover your Gems!"

I quickly put my hands over my chest, and Steven, with a look of surprise, covered his abdomen. Emily pulled a trigger on the device, and an ear-splitting whine reverberated across the beach. I could feel my brain rattling and desperately wanted to cover my ears, but I felt even more distress around my Gem. A burning sensation spread around my chest, like my Gem was trying to tear itself from my body. Steven seemed to be suffering the same effect, while Mandy only seemed mildly irritated, wincing and rubbing her ear.

Fortunately, the unpleasantness only lasted for a few seconds, until the spider exploded in a burst of white smoke, and Emily disengaged her device. With its body gone, the spider's square, purple Gem lay lifelessly in the sand. I had never seen a Gem's body disrupted, of course, only having briefly met one Gem (two Gems...?) before, but I was familiar with the process, based on stories my mum had told me. Since it was unobstructed, the Gem would soon create a new, similar body, and probably attack us again.

Steven raced over to the Gem, and picked it up. I was curious to see what system Steven employed, as I assumed he saw Gems like these regularly, based on his demeanor, but I wouldn't have predicted what ensued. The Gem floated from his hand, and was encased in a pink bubble, which, with a tap from Steven, fizzled away into nothing.

"Okay..." I began, as the four of us converged. "What was that...?" I pointed at Emily's device. "And what the hell was _that_!?" I pointed at the sand where the spider had been.

Emily answered first. "Sonic cannon my aunts developed. It's... for self-defense, primarily... It still needs work..."

"And that was a corrupted Gem." Steven answered. "You guys are probably on vacation, right? You're welcome to hang out on the beach but... it's probably safer if you don't come too close to the temple..."

"Actually, we're here to see you and the Gems." I said, nervously. "Garnet invited us..."

"Ooh right. She said we might be having a visitor. How do you two know each other?"

"She... didn't say...?"

I appreciated Garnet respecting my privacy, and letting me introduce myself to Steven, but I had no idea how to do so. Up until this point in the conversation, Steven, like any well-raised young man, had refrained from staring at my chest, but before he answered my question, he finally noticed my Gem, and gasped in alarm.

"Is that... Are... are you...?" He babbled.

I clenched my fists and summoned a boomerang in each hand. "Surprise...!"


	7. Crystal Recruits

After overcoming his initial shock, Steven invited us to follow him back to the beach house, in the hands of the statue. Steven's house was attractively decorated. There were wooden beams spaced around the floorspace, which gave way at the back, to the stony threshold of the temple, featuring a narrow, arch-shaped door with a star on it, like Steven's T-shirt, and another wide, stone circle, like the one Garnet had used to teleport from the Keystone ruins. To the right of the door, was a small kitchen, and to the left, a handsome, white corner sofa, and a small, mezzanine bedroom.

Immediately after entering, we were greeted be a shrill, grating voice. "Steven! You survived!"

Mandy and I were startled, certainly, but Emily cried out in alarm, as we noticed the person who had seemingly been watching the fight with the spider, through the house's blinds. She was very short, around Steven's height, not counting her pointy, triangular hairdo, making her look like an oddly-coloured road sign. She was mostly green, with a darker green body suit, and yellow hair. There was a visor covering the top half of her face, like Garnet's, only transparent, and a triangular, green Gem was fitted into her forehead.

"Oh my god, you're a... a..." Emily struggled.

"A Gem...?" The Gem irritably finished, with a frown on her face. "Steven, why have you invited these dull humans into your home?"

"Because they're not humans!" Steven enthusiastically answered, but he quickly caught himself, and smiled embarrassedly. "Gosh, I didn't even ask if you were all Gem hybrids! Or what your names were!"

I laughed, glad that Steven was being as awkward as I felt. "No, it's just me that's a hybrid, I'm Jayla, but you can call me JJ."

Emily and Mandy introduced themselves too.

The Gem stepped forwards and extended her hand to us. "Hello there, I'm Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG, would any of you care to take an uncomfortable grip of my hand... and elevate and lower it?" She grinned suggestively.

I couldn't help but smirk at the small Gem's unusual speech pattern, as I shook her hand.

"Wow, great job, Peridot!" Steven said. "That _is_ how people greet each other on earth!"

Emily frowned, as she shook Peridot's hand. "What did you say, just now...? Facet what?" She asked.

Peridot frowned, irritably. "2F5L Cut-5XG." She repeated.

"Facet and Cut numbers are how Gems tell each other apart." Steven explained. "There are a lot of Peridots on Homeworld and other Gem planets, but she's the only one on earth, so you don't have to call her that."

"Yes, 'Peridot' is fine." Peridot confirmed.

The five of us took a seat on the couch and got to talking. It turned out, that Steven was fourteen, and had known the Crystal Gems his entire life, and lived with them for almost as long. I'd have lied if I said I wasn't envious. Steven had spent his life surrounded by Gems, who could answer any of his many questions about his heritage. My feelings weren't improved, when Steven began to list the powers his Gem offered him. Steven had super strength, could float through the air, manifest a shield and a protective bubble, heal any injury, create animated plant life, and (for some reason) transform his fingers into cat heads.

With each new power Steven mentioned, my heart fell a little lower. Steven was incredible! And all I could do was summon boomerangs... I reasoned that it was probably just because Steven was a different kind of Gem to me. Upon inquiry, Steven revealed that his mum had been a warrior, called Rose Quartz. Lifting his shirt, he showed us a circular, pink Gem, with a pentagonal facet. It made sense that a Rose Quartz would be more powerful than a Jet. Jets were supposed to be pilots, I imagined they were only expected to summon weapons and fight hand-to-hand (or hand-to-hairy spider leg) as a last resort. I wondered how I would fare behind the wheel of a Gem spaceship, like the one my space mum had flown to earth in.

Eventually, the stone circle in front of the temple burst into life, projecting a beam of light skyward, and when it faded, Garnet had appeared, along with the two remaining Crystal Gems, one tall, slender and pale, with a blue dress and a smooth round Gem on her forehead, and another who was quite the opposite- short, squat and purple, with bushy, lilac hair and very human-like jeans and a top, which partially concealed a purple Gem in the same place as my own. It turned out, these two were Pearl and Amethyst.

"No waaay...!" Amethyst gasped, after we had all introduced ourselves, and I'd drawn attention to my Gem.

"This is incredible..." Pearl noted, bending over slightly to inspect my Gem, up close. "I mean, it's always been a possibility of course, since Steven exists, but to think he wasn't even the first..."

"Well... If Gems have been around for thousands of years, couldn't there have been a bunch who fell in love with humans?" Steven suggested.

" _We've_ been around for thousands of years." Pearl corrected, indicating to herself, Amethyst and Garnet. "The rest of the Gems who came to earth either went back to Homeworld or... well..."

Pearl trailed off, a look of great remorse on her face, my curiosity and empathy fought for control of my mouth for a moment, until curiosity won. I gently asked Steven to finish Pearl's history lesson. He explained to us that a war had been fought for earth thousands of years ago, which had ended with the corruption of the rebel army, reducing them to monsters, the likes of which we'd fought with on the beach.

"But my mum came to earth more recently, like thirty years ago." I pointed out. "How likely is it that she was the only one in however many thousands of years it's been?"

"Yeah, how do you know there aren't other Gems on earth?" Emily added.

"Because Gems are super loud and flashy!" Amethyst said. "They're always all, 'We're here to conquer your planet and kidnap you for a zoo!'"

"It's true." Peridot agreed. "We Gems are not a subtle species, overall."

"But you're talking about military Gems, from that Homeworld you mentioned." Mandy said. "Mightn't there have been other castaways like Jet, or rebels like you guys, since then? You know, Gems who specifically don't want to be found?"

Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl shared a series of nervous looks.

"That's right, just think of Fluorite and Rhodonite!" Steven said, excitedly. "Homeworld Gems like them could fall in love and fuse, anywhere in the Galaxy, and if they met near earth, the first thing they would do is come to earth and go into hiding! Same with Gems like Padparashca and the Rutile twins!"

There was another pause, as the realisation settled in.

"Sooo..." Amethyst eventually said. "What do we do with that? Are we gonna look all over the earth for other Gems, and see if they wanna be Crystal Gems?"

"Not today, we're not." Garnet quickly answered. "We have enough new recruits for now."

"R... recruits?" I reacted.

I had worried earlier that the Crystal Gems were heroes who protected the earth, to whom I could never measure up. I was deeply flattered by Garnet's presumption, but my concern was still present.

"I don't think you want me to be a Crystal Gem... I mean, I'm no good in a fight! If it wasn't for Emily's gizmo earlier, I'd be spider food right now..."

"That's just because you never got the chance to train with a Gem warrior!" Steven said. "I used to worry that I wouldn't be much help to the Gems, too, but then they took me on missions, so I could get experience, and Pearl taught me how to fight!" He gasped loudly. "You should come and train with us!"

My mind raced with the possibilities, learning to use my powers to their full potential, to protect the earth... As good as it sounded, there was an obvious drawback.

"I'd love to, but... Jets aren't supposed to be warriors... They're pilots."

There was a pause, during which many of the Gems shared fleeting glances. Suddenly, Steven, Amethyst and Pearl burst into laughter. Garnet also seemed to smirk slightly.

Eventually, Pearl wiped a tear from her eye. "Jayla, around here, we don't let Homeworld's expectations of us limit our potential. Why, we Pearls are made to assist aristocrats in doing menial tasks, but I was one of the fiercest warriors in the rebellion!"

"And I was always told that we younger Gems couldn't possess psionic powers!" Peridot enthusiastically contributed. "And look at me now!"

Peridot held her hands out and scowled in concentration, and a teaspoon floated out of a cup of tea, on the coffee table, and span around in the air, spraying droplets of tea in all directions.

I had to admit to myself, that I was impressed. The Crystal Gems sentiments really spoke to my insecurities. Even though I had never heard of an alien Pearl before today, it was inspiring to know that one could go from servant to warrior, by her own will.

"Okay!" I blurted out, before I felt committed to my answer. "Let's train!"

As it turned out, Pearl trained Steven, alongside his human friend, Connie, who would be coming over tomorrow. I agreed to wait until then, so we could all train together. The conversation drifted back and forth for a while after that. After all of my questions about Gems, the Crystal Gems were curious to know about me. I told them about growing up, believing I was the only one of my kind, and how I was now living in a tiny flat with Mandy, and working in a coffee shop.

Eventually, we were talking about the Crystal Gems again, and Emily asked, "So you rebelled against your Homeworld when they came here, but... It was just about wanting the Earth to be safe, right?"

That seemed like a strange question, and the house's other occupants seemed to share my opinion.

"Well of course, why else would we?" Pearl asked.

"I dunno..." Emily awkwardly replied. "I thought it might be about Gems... like... you don't like Homeworld Gems or something?"

Garnet frowned confusedly. "That would be ridiculous..." She noted.

"Yeah, all Gems are Homeworld Gems to begin with!" Peridot pointed out, in a voice which suggested Emily was an idiot.

"Uhhh, yo, not me?" Amethyst said.

"Except Amethyst." Peridot acknowledged.

"So... what are you gonna do if you find out there _are_ other Gems on earth?" Emily asked.

"We'll ask them to join our team!" Steven said, excitedly.

"And if they don't want to?" Emily pressed.

"There's not much middle ground between invading Homeworld Gems and Crystal Gems..." Pearl said.

"But what if other Gems just want to be left alone, by you _and_ Homeworld?" There was more than a hint of panic in Emily's voice, which everyone noticed.

"Emily...?" Mandy said, in a cautious voice, but holding her arm, comfortingly.

"What are you talking about...?" I asked.

Emily looked around the room, realising everyone was staring at her. She exhaled slowly, calming herself, while also sighing in resignation. "Okay... confession time..." She looked to me and Mandy. "I'm really sorry I didn't tell you guys sooner... My aunts made me promise."

Emily reached behind her head, undid her eyepatch, and lifted her hair. I thought back to when I had first asked Emily about the patch. She hadn't said "I'm lost my eye" or "My eye was injured", she had said "I have one eye". She had told the truth, her eyepatch didn't cover a damaged or inactive eyeball... it covered a green, triangular Gem.


	8. A Tale of Three Peridots

"You're a Gem hybrid too!?" At least three of us said at once.

Mandy shot to her feet, a look of horror on her face. "Oh my god, is this why you came to me? To get close to JJ!?"

Garnet gritted her teeth urgently, and clasped her hands over Steven's ears, just before Mandy swore loudly.

"I can't believe I trusted you! I knew you were too cool to be interested in me!"

Emily quickly stood up, too. "Oh my god... No! Is that what you really think!? Mandy, I swear I had no idea about JJ, I really do like you!"

"Aww..." Steven reacted, quietly.

Emily reached towards Mandy, but she backed away, defensively. "Just... stay away from me..." She demanded, before spinning around and storming from the beach house, gently closing the door behind her.

Emily held her hand out to the door, in longing defeat, before turning around, to see that everyone was staring at her again. Her Gem glinted in the indirect sunlight, as though taunting her for her secret getting out.

"I swear I didn't know..." She repeated to me. "I thought I was the only hybrid too, until you showed me your powers the other day..."

I believed her, but Emily wasn't off the hook that easily. "So why didn't you tell me, back then? You know, when I trusted you with the exact same information?"

"It's not a secret for you though..." Emily argued.

"So why is it for you? Who do you think you are? Bruce Wayne?"

Emily cringed in frustration. "It's a long story... and if I'm gonna tell it, I'd prefer Mandy hear it..."

I wanted to respect Mandy's feelings, but I also really wanted to know about Emily. As a compromise, I reasoned that I should probably be outside, giving Mandy emotional support, and while I was doing so, I'd see if she was up for coming back inside.

I sighed and nodded. "Be right back."

Outside, Mandy was pacing on the shore, kicking a shell along with the ball of her bare foot, she normally put her hands in her pockets when she was frustrated but, since she was wearing a beach skirt, she angrily clenched her fists, instead. I jumped over the handrail on the house's decking, and ran over to her.

"Hey, you doing okay?" I gently asked.

"She lied to me!" Mandy angrily snapped. "Five days, I've known her, and sure, being half alien is a weird thing to bring up on a first date, and when we first met, you said you were kidding about your Gem, but then two days ago you proved it, and she knew that we were cool with Gem stuff, and she still doesn't tell us?"

"Yeah, that was kind of a dick move..." I agreed.

"And who knows how long she would have lied to us if she hadn't slipped up back there?" Mandy pursed her lips and I saw tears forming in the corners of her eyes. "I can't believe I was stupid enough to think someone like her could be into someone like me..."

"Hey!" I snapped. I really hated hearing Mandy talk about herself like that. I held my arms out invitingly, and after a moment, Mandy stepped over and let me hug her. "For what it's worth, I think she really does like you. I don't think your relationship was just a ruse to get to me."

"Yeah, maybe..." Mandy accepted. "But she should have told us when you told her about you."

"She wants to explain everything to us, if you'll hear her out..." I said.

Mandy stepped back from the hug, and frowned, uncertainly.

I continued. "You're my best friend, so I'll tell you what- Once we've heard what Emily has to say, whatever you think, I'll support you 100%." I offered. "If you don't forgive her, then she's dead to me!"

Mandy smiled appreciatively. "You don't have to do that. You should probably stick together, there are only three of you on the planet."

"Well if we _did_ run into each other by coincidence, I really doubt that..."

Mandy accepted my offer and, a few moments later, she was sitting on Steven's couch again, between me and Garnet, her legs and arms folded, and shooting a stern look at Emily, who was standing nervously in front of us, like she was a high school student, giving a presentation.

"Okay, so... I guess the first thing you should know, is that on Homeworld, they hardly talk about Earth, and the war anymore."

That explained why my mum hadn't heard about the Earth, before she crashed here, but I didn't interrupt, to say so.

"And when they do talk about the war... they don't tell it the way you guys did..." Emily continued. "On Homeworld, most Gems say that corruption and the Crystal Gems' rebellion were just different stages of the same illness that broke out on earth, spread from a patient zero, called Rose Quartz. They say that the Gems that came here to start a colony went insane, and started attacking each other, and after the planet was condemned, the Gems started to mutate, and the Diamonds were forced to purge the earth of Gems, to contain the outbreak."

Garnet shot to her feet. "That's a lie!" She said. Her voice was loud, but still fairly free from emotion.

"Yeah, I know." Emily replied. "Just under a hundred years ago, a team of three Peridots dug up some of the data on earth, and found out that there were hundreds of corrupted Gems still here, and they got the idea in their heads, that corruption could be undone if it was studied enough. They studied as much as they could, being three galaxies away from the nearest corrupted Gem, and shared their findings and theories with anyone who would listen, but the harder they pushed, the harder their higher ups pushed back, and told them to drop it.

Eventually, the Peridots were brought before Yellow Diamond herself. She told them to drop their research and assigned them to kindergartening duty in the depths of Homeworld. She was literally trying to bury them and their findings. The Peridots protested, insisting that there was hope for Gems on Earth, but Yellow Diamond issued them with an ultimatum- Fall into line, or be shattered.

Yellow Diamond had slipped up. She didn't want the Gems on earth to be helped, and the Peridots could tell. She may have wished corruption on the Crystal Gems, but the Peridots wouldn't wish a fate like that on anyone! They stole a ship and fled from Homeworld, to study corruption on earth. Almost as soon as they arrived, they figured out that Homeworld had lied. Corruption wasn't a viral outbreak, it was barely contagious at all! They'd barely got a corrupted Gem in a diagnostic tank, when they realised that whatever had happened to them had been VERY deliberate.

The Peridots never figured out why the Diamonds had attacked the Crystal Gems, and they didn't really care. They've been here, ever since, working on a cure, and frankly... It's not going that well..."

Emily reached an intermission in her story, and a hushed silence fell.

"Wooow..." Steven eventually said.

"That's so noble of them!" Pearl said, in an emotional voice, covering her mouth with her hands.

"I wonder if there's a correlation with my own defiance of Yellow Diamond." Peridot speculated. She gently nudged Steven with her elbow. "Remember when I called her a clod, Steven?" She grinned proudly.

"So, then one of them fell in love with a human?" I speculated.

Emily raised the eyebrow above her Gem, in confusion. "No? Why would you say that?"

I gestured at Emily with my fingertips, as if to say, "Look at all this."

Emily was no less confused. "What...?"

"Do you not know where Gem hybrid babies come from?" I asked, incredulously.

"Apparently not... if it involves loving humans..." Emily replied.

"Well, when a Gem and a human woman love each other very much, the Gem can be used to impregnate the human, and fuse with human DNA, to create a viable fetus." I explained.

"That's not how I was born." Steven said. "I had a Gem mom and a human dad. My Gem mom carried me."

"What...? But... Gems don't have uteruses..." I pointed out. "Do they...?"

"Rose shapeshifted for nine months, into a form that was compatible with human reproduction." Pearl explained.

Emily looked at me and Steven like we were freaks. "I was gestated in a tank, in a lab, from a sample of DNA, taken from a carefully selected, healthy human specimen..."

For several seconds, I tried to think of an appropriate follow-up question to that, before settling on an exasperated, " _Why_...?"

"The Peridots noticed how adaptive life on earth was. Human bodies can literally change on a cellular level, to adapt to new environments and pathogens. They theorised that a Gem-Human hybrid might help bridge the gap between the two species, and find a way to make corrupted Gems adapt, and fight their illness." Emily frowned sadly. "But like I said... not much luck..."

"So wait..." Mandy began, her curiosity seeming to quell her anger slightly. "Those aunts of yours... They're Gems?"

I remembered that Mandy had been to Emily's home and, by extension, met her aunts. It was surprising that Mandy hadn't known straight away, what they were, since all the Gems I'd met, were distinctly inhuman shapes and colours. Not to mention the Gemstones on their bodies.

"Yeah, after I was born, they realised that they'd have to integrate into human society, so they took turns spending a few months making some drastically different forms, that could pass for human."

It was an impressive story, but I still wasn't clear on why it meant Emily hadn't seen me as an ally, when she found out we were both hybrids, or why she had come with us, on this trip. I mulled over the question in my head, before asking it out loud.

"I was raised not to trust other Gems, under any circumstances." Emily embarrassedly explained. "My aunts told me that Homeworld Gems were dangerous liars, and Earth Gems were mindless monsters. When you told me that a Crystal Gem had spoken to you and that there was a hybrid on their team, I didn't know what to think, and neither did they. We talked about it a lot, they really didn't want me to go at first, but I reasoned that if Crystal Gems actually WERE a threat to the earth, like the Diamonds had said, then I should investigate and find out what I could, and I didn't tell you guys because I wanted you to have plausible deniability... Now that I know that the Crystal Gems are just freedom fighters... I feel kinda stupid..."

Emily concluded her story, and the room fell silent, as we processed it.

"You _are_ kinda stupid..." Mandy said, her arms still tightly folded in indignation. "But... I guess you were just trying to keep us safe..."

Emily smiled gratefully, but Mandy's expression remained stern.

"You still should have told us... We're not idiots, we can handle ourselves."

"I know..." Emily frowned. "I'm sorry..."

Mandy sighed, and brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead. "It's fine, just... give me some time, okay?"

The Crystal Gems had adopted awkward expressions, as Mandy and Emily's relationship drama had escalated and faded. Eventually, Garnet felt comfortable changing the subject.

"Emily, if your Peridot friends are wary of Crystal Gems, they're welcome to their privacy. We fight for the safety and happiness of anyone who calls earth home, Gems and humans alike."

"But ask if I can come and see them!" Peridot quickly added. "I've missed hanging out with other Peridots..." She sighed.

"Sure, 2F5L 5XG, right?" Emily confirmed.

Eventually, we all moved on from the bombshell Emily had dropped, and got back to the reason I had come here- to meet and learn more about other Gems and hybrids (albeit with one more hybrid than planned). We talked about the Gem war, Steven's more recent adventures, capturing corrupted Gems and fighting off Homeworld Gems, and Emily's experiments with her aunts. It turned out that both the Crystal Gems and Emily's aunts had a room full of contained corrupted Gems, with no confident, long-term plan for them.

This made Garnet and Pearl somewhat uncomfortable. In contrast to what she had said earlier, Garnet politely, but forcefully, requested a meeting with Emily's aunts, so that she could ensure the corrupted Gems were being properly cared for, to which Emily only promised to relay the message. Garnet reluctantly accepted.

The day wore on to a close, and Emily, Mandy and I wished Steven a goodnight, and retired to Emily's RV, for food, and sleep.

"So, how are you feeling?" Mandy asked, optimistically, as we walked down the beach. "Both of you, I guess... Now that you've met everyone."

"Kinda inadequate, to be honest..." I admitted. "They all sound super amazing... but who knows? Maybe I do have it in me to be a Gem warrior like them." I summoned a boomerang and twirled it around my fingers in demonstration.

"It's pretty good to know that there have been friendly Gems on earth this whole time." Emily added. "And it's cool to meet Gems besides Peridots. I always kinda imagined other Gems to be know-it-all nerds, like them." She smirked affectionately.

Tomorrow, we would meet Steven's friend Connie, and I would get a chance to train in combat with Pearl. My mind raced with possibilities as to how that would work, as I lay on the top bunk, at the back of the RV, and quickly drifted off to sleep.


	9. Training Montage

I was up bright and earlier, the next morning, making coffee and pacing anxiously, waiting for it to be a more appropriate hour to go and visit Steven, in the hopes it would be time to train. In a fit of chivalry, Emily had slept on the RV's couch, instead of sharing the bottom bunk with Mandy, as I assumed the plan had been, and she was soon awake, and staring at me resentfully, as I kept her up.

"So, are you gonna train with Pearl, too?" I asked her, after coaxing her out from under her blanket and making her a coffee. "What are your Gem powers, anyway? I never asked."

While she took a long sip of her coffee, Emily squinted at me and her Gem glowed a dull green. From the RV's kitchen counter, I heard my phone buzzing frantically, less like I was receiving a text, and more like there were several bees trapped inside it. I quickly picked it up, to see that the screen was distorted and flickering with static. Clearly visible in the middle of the screen, were the words, "Hi JJ, I'm using my Gem powers! Love, Emily."

"You're a technomancer!?" I gasped, significantly impressed.

"My mom could interface with any Gem tech in sight, without touching it, which is rare enough for Gems, but I can do the same with earth tech, too, provided it's wireless accessible."

"That's so cool! I'm jealous!" I said, thinking of all I could do with powers like that. "So how about training?" I repeated.

"Pass." Mandy replied. "I'm a thinker, not a fighter. Nothing against Gem warriors, but if I'm gonna get into a fight, I'd rather do it in a Gem-powered battle mech."

"Like a Hulkbuster suit? Do you actually have something like that?"

"Yeah, this whole RV is basically a Transformer. It changes into a giant, killer robot." She took a long sip of her coffee, while I stared at her in wide-eyed shock. "I'm kidding... But I could probably make something like that if I wanted to."

After what felt like many more hours than it had actually been, ten o'clock rolled around, and the three of us left the van, and made our way along the beach, towards Steven's house. I noticed Emily wore her eyepatch, after she got dressed, despite us all knowing about her Gem. I reasoned that it still had uses, besides hiding her identity, such as reading text messages. Just after the house came into view, we turned around, in response to the sound of rapid footsteps coming towards us, and saw a young, Indian girl, I assumed to be Connie.

She looked to be around Steven's age, albeit slightly taller, and had a narrow frame, and shoulder-length, black hair. She wore denim overalls, over a red t-shirt, and a duffle bag, which partially contained a pink sword which was almost as big as she was, with a curved guard and a rose-shaped pummel.

"Hi!" She called to us, as she approached. "Are you JJ, Emily and Mandy?" She asked. "I'm Connie!"

"Yeah, that's us. I'm JJ." I said, shaking her hand, warmly. "Steven told you about us?"

"Yeah, he's really excited, and so am I! It's so great that he isn't the only Gem hybrid!"

While we continued towards the house, Emily and I told Connie about our Gems and their powers. While Connie was familiar with the Gem cut Peridot, being associated with the one we'd met the previous day, she had never heard of an alien Jet, nor seen such a small Gem before.

Inside, we found Pearl and Steven waiting for us, and they led us to the disk by the temple, which I was told was called a Warp Pad. I felt anxious about using one myself, as the six of us stepped on, and from their expressions, I guessed Emily and Mandy were too. I wondered it Emily had ever used one before. I wondered if I'd be able to operate a device like this, myself, without Emily's technomancy powers.

My train of thought was cut off, as the house and temple were obscured by a brilliant glow of blue light, and my ears were filled with the Warp Pad's chiming noise. Suddenly, I felt very light, and my ears popped, like when you're on a train, going through a tunnel.

When the light and sound faded, I felt cold and light headed. For a moment, I thought it was an effect of the warp, until my eyes adjusted, and I saw, to my amazement, that the structure we'd warped to, towered over the clouds, themselves. A sea of fluffy white sat below the stone structure I found myself at.

As Pearl explained, this was the Sky Arena, an ancient training ground for Gem warriors. It bore a striking resemblance to the Roman colosseum, as Mandy was very quick to point out, as she ran from the Warp Pad, and started taking notes on the architecture, sharing her findings so loudly and quickly, I feared she'd forget to breathe. I soon found out, to my continued astonishment, that the arena wasn't atop an impossibly tall structure, but freely floated above the clouds. Much of the arena had been eroded by time, and was still floating nearby. Based on the shape of the remaining structure, I guessed it had used to be at least three times larger, in its heyday.

At Pearl's instruction, Mandy, Emily and Steven sat down on the arena's remaining row of stone steps, and guided Connie and me to the center of the arena's remaining floorspace.

"Now Jayla, before we start your training, I'd like to get an understanding of your existing abilities, so why don't you spar with my star pupil, Connie here, and show me what you can do!"

I looked at Connie, she was about half my height and age, but she held her pink sword with an off-putting confidence in her eyes and stance (not that I knew anything about swordplay). It seemed unwise to underestimate her, but at the same time, I didn't want to hurt her...

"I won't go easy on you!" Connie dramatically declared, brandishing her sword.

I summoned a boomerang in each hand and braced them defensively. "Likewise..."

Pearl stepped clear of the battlefield, and swept her arms, like she was signaling the start of a street race. "Begin!"

Connie immediately lunged forwards and made a horizontal slash with her sword, which I quickly parried with my boomerangs, before darting to the side, hoping to strike Connie from the side opposite to her sword. I swept with my leg, hoping to knock her off her feet, but Connie's reflexes and agility were almost inhuman. She leapt over my leg, and delivered a mid-air kick to my jaw.

"Ow!" I reacted in surprise, even though the kick hadn't been that painful.

"I'm sorry! Did that hurt?" Connie quickly said.

"Only my pride." I jokingly replied.

I leapt at Connie with my boomerangs in front of me, ready to attack, but also, defend against impaling. Sure enough, Connie's reflexes continued to serve her well. Despite my weapons being far smaller and lighter, Connie effortlessly countered my flurry of attacks, as she backed away, along the arena. I attacked again and again, almost as fast as I could move my arms, but I was unable to breach the small human girl's defense.

Eventually, I gave up on my strategy, and tried my hand at ranged combat. I pushed against Connie's sword, and darted backwards, sliding on the balls of my feet, before sending a dozen boomerangs hurtling through the air with a massive swing of my arms. Some shot directly at Connie while others arched to the side, or zoomed around behind her. Connie struck the first attacks aside with her sword, ducked the second, and evaded the attacks from behind with an agile roll, as though she had eyes in the back of her head.

I was so impressed, I barely ducked out of the way of Connie's attack. Connie continued her offensive onslaught and I swayed, rolled and jumped clear of each attack, like I was dancing. A second into the future, I could see Connie lightly tapping my skin with the sword, somewhere potentially fatal, after which I assumed she'd be declared the winner, and I evaded accordingly.

I could tell Connie was skilled, but one advantage I had, was that I had a Gem, which meant, if nothing else, I was stronger than her. Even in the heat of battle, I took a moment to wonder if I should use brute force to win a fight against a child, and decided it would be disrespectful if I didn't give it my all.

As Connie swung with her sword, I wrapped my hands around the hilt, above hers, and began forcing her sword backwards, towards her. My opponent looked worried, for just a moment, before collapsing to the ground, and pushing herself forwards, sliding between my legs. I spun around, pink sword in hand, but as I did, Connie grabbed my hands, and the sword, and, with a twist of her tiny body, threw my grown woman self over her shoulder like I was light as a pillow, and wrenching the sword from my hands in the process.

I fell painfully onto my back, and had barely moved, before I found the tip of the sword, pointing squarely between my eyes. I had been about to climb to my feet, but, realising I had lost, I relaxed on the stone floor, and laughed, as my adrenaline high kicked in.

"Good fight!" Connie congratulated me, as she helped me climb to my feet. "I can't believe you've never trained!"

"Well I can tell you have!" I enthusiastically replied. "You're amazing!"

"Yes, well done both of you!" Pearl agreed, walking over. "Connie, I'm very proud of you, and Jayla, I can tell you have great potential! With enough hard work and training, I'm sure you'll catch up with Steven and Connie in no time!"

We started training immediately. Pearl projected from her Gem, three holograms of herself, armed with spears, and had each one engage me, Steven and Connie in combat, in a way which challenged our individual skills. My holo-Pearl was much faster than other two, and challenged the boundaries of my future vision, as I pushed myself to keep up with it.

As I fought, I talked with Pearl. It turned out, she had never heard of a Jet, either, before meeting me, or short-range future vision. She told me that Homeworld history was divided into two eras, the second of which had begun after the Crystal Gems were stranded on earth. As such, there were many new Gems and technologies with which the Crystal Gems were unfamiliar.

A couple of hours into my training, Mandy and Emily got bored, and warped back to Beach City, to hang out with the rest of the Gems, but our training continued. I got the impression that the training sessions weren't normally this long, especially after Connie mentioned that she attended school and lived with her parents, in another town. I wondered if they were going all out to impress me. I was flattered if so.

We fought the Holo-Pearls some more, did some basic attack drills, dueled each other, and at the peak of the training, we had a tag team fight, in which Connie and I teamed up against Steven and Pearl. The fight was glorious and exhilarating, but eventually, Steven's team won, although I sensed Pearl was holding back.

Eventually, the day drew to a close, and the cloudy sea below us turned crimson with the setting sun, and Steven, Connie and I collapsed with a collective sigh of relief on the arena's steps, where Steven began pouring orange juice out of a pitcher he had fetched from his house, not long ago.

"I... I'm sorry if I got carried away with the training..." Pearl laughed, awkwardly. "It's not every day I get a new student."

"So, do you think you'll keep training with us?" Steven asked, hopefully, handing me a glass.

"I dunno..." I replied, looking at the orange liquid, and then up at Connie and Steven's heartbroken faces. "I mean, I'd love to!" I quickly clarified. "But I have a life in Empire City... you know? I don't know how often I can make it down here."

"But, you're glad you came, right?" Connie asked.

"Definitely!" I immediately replied. "You guys are great. I never really thought being half Gem would amount to much, back when I thought I was the only Gem on the planet, but now... I dunno... I feel like being a hybrid will be a lot more fun, if I don't have to do it alone."


	10. Professor P

Eventually, our holiday drew to a close, and Mandy and I needed to get back to our work and classes, so, after some farewells, we boarded the RV, and headed back, albeit with more passengers than we'd come with. We planned to visit Emily's aunts once we got back to the city, and Steven, Garnet and Peridot had requested that they come with us, Garnet, so that she could ensure her war buddies were being taken care of, and Steven and Peridot, so they could meet the other Gems on earth, and introduce themselves.

As far as travel companions went, I'd had worse. Steven entertained us with various car games, while Peridot made the occasional snarky remark about the RV's outdated technology, compared to Gem machines like the Warp Pad. Emily spent a lot of the time angrily arguing with Peridot, as it turned out she'd put a lot of work into the machine, herself.

Eventually, Emily parked the RV in a parking lot, underneath a skyscraper in the heart of Empire City, and we disembarked, and took the elevator to the 21st floor, where Emily unlocked a sturdy metal and glass door, with an electronic keycard. On the other side, was a large, but modest laboratory. It wasn't as science-fiction as I was expecting. There were several counters and surfaces, with neatly arranged lab equipment, glass cabinets displaying various chemicals and tools, and an enormous monitor, which spanned the entire wall, opposite the door we came in through.

We only had a moment to take all this in, before two Gems came shooting into the lab, through another door, one with a desperate looks in her eyes.

"Emily! You're unharmed! Oh, thank the cosmos!" The agitated one cried, before sprinting over and throwing her arms around Emily, almost tackling her to the ground.

The other Gem strolled over, folded her arms and rolled her eyes. I saw why Mandy had been fooled by their human disguises. I could tell they were Gems, since Emily had already filled us in, but were I in the dark, I probably would have just assumed they were strange-looking humans. They were slender, and tall, almost as tall as Garnet, with ghostly pale skin, and wore lab coats over plain sweaters, one blue, and one orange. Their faces were very similar, meaning the easiest way to tell them apart, besides their sweaters was their hair. They were both a vibrant, lime-green, like Emily, but the one squeezing her affectionately had a bushy pair of pigtails, which reached her lower back, while the other had a very 80's, spherical bob.

"Of course I'm okay, Perry! Why wouldn't I be!" Emily protested, while gently pushing the Gem off her.

"You were with potentially hostile Gems!" Perry argued, in the same nasal whine I'd heard the shorter Peridot use on occasion. "No offense." She quickly added, shooting a fleeting glance at Garnet.

"None taken." Garnet affirmed.

"I texted you a bunch of times to say I was okay!" Emily said.

"Well... yes... but I was..." Perry awkwardly began to reply.

"She was worried that you'd been kidnapped, and the Crystal Gems had stolen your phone." The other Peridot finished, with a coy smile.

Perry bit her bottom lip, fumed angrily, and rounded in her colleague. "I _speculated_ that that could happen! I never committed to it as a viable possibility!"

"Oh please, I had to hide the car keys to keep you from rushing to her rescue."

"Well excuse me for loving and caring about our niece!"

"I will, but I won't excuse you for embarrassing her in front of her new colleagues!"

" _Speaking of which_!" Emily angrily interrupted.

The Peridots froze, and their angry expressions gave way to embarrassed smiles.

"Yes, welcome, Crystal Gems..." The Peridot with the bob greeted us. "My name is Peridot 18HQ-85T and this is 2L57-V42, but Emily got tired of calling us that when she was a child, so dubbed us Dorothy and Perry."

"Ooh! Perry and Dot! I get it!" Steven laughed.

"Yes, but Dorothy is fine..." Dorothy irritably corrected.

Steven, Mandy, Garnet and I introduced ourselves, and then, Peridot took her turn.

"Peridot 2F5L-5XG. I rebelled from Homeworld myself, not that long ago. Yellow Diamond, am I right? What a piece of work!"

The other Peridots shared a confused and thoughtful look, and Dorothy mouthed Peridot's number, before her eyes widened and she snapped her fingers. "That's where I know you from!"

She tapped rapidly on a small keyboard, and the lab's monitor burst into life, displaying Peridot, anxiously recording what looked like a distress message. I vaguely remembered people talking about such a thing last year. A strange message showing up on every TV. Mandy and I don't watch live TV since everything can be streamed online, so we didn't see it, and I hadn't been interested enough to look it up. I'd assumed it was just a weird commercial or something.

"We saw your message last year." Perry explained. "We tried to keep tabs on you, in case you were a precursor to a Homeworld incident, but we never found you."

"Yes, I had something of a... conflict... with the Crystal Gems after that, then I spent a while building a drill, and now I'm living in a barn with my friend, Lapis!"

The other Peridots spent a moment politely reacting to Peridot's story, before changing the subject.

"Anyway!" Dorothy said. "Let's get to why we're all here. Perry, why don't you show Garnet our containment units, for her approval, and I'll show the others what we've been working on!" She said, excitedly.

"You've been working on something?" Emily asked.

Before Dorothy could elaborate, Perry interrupted. "Why do you get to show them?"

Dorothy sighed irritably. "I don't know, it doesn't matter!"

"Then you show Garnet the containment room, and I'll show them the... other thing."

"Well... it was my idea, and I'm proud of it!"

"But I put more work into it!"

"Like heck you did!"

" _Guys_!" Emily angrily shouted.

Dorothy and Perry looked at Emily apologetically, then sternly at each other.

"Lapis, Fire Quartz, Turquoise?" Perry suggested.

"Let's do it!"

The two slammed their fists into their palms three times, while counting upwards, and then each made an obscure hand gesture, and cried out the name of a Gem.

"Lapis!" Shouted Dorothy.

"Fire Quartz!" Was Perry's choice.

Based on their reactions, it seemed Dorothy had won. She cackled nasally, and shoed Perry away. "Poor Perry, you always choose Fire Quartz. Now off you go."

While Perry bitterly led Garnet towards the door through which she and Dorothy had entered the lab, Emily leaned over to me and Mandy, and whispered, "Twenty-four years I've been living with this..." making Mandy giggle.

"Now, since we found out there's not one, but at least three Gem-human hybrids living on Earth, I have been buzzing with the idea of exactly how many there could be!" Dorothy filled us in, as she led us to the back of the lab.

Dorothy tapped on another keyboard, and a series of diagrams and illustrations appeared on the monitor, corresponding with what she was saying.

"Now, all organic life, gives off a biometric signature, unique not only to each individual, but in a more general sense, its entire species!"

Behind us, Perry stuck her head into the lab. "Are you watching the slideshow yet? I did the graphic design!" She said, proudly.

"Get back to work!" Dorothy snapped.

"You're not the boss of me!" Perry snapped back.

"I would be, if..."

" _GUYS_!" Emily shouted again.

Perry sighed, and stormed back to the containment room, and Dorothy continued.

"Now, we've known for a long time, that Emily's hormones are completely unique to her. We've tried scanning the planet for others of the same species dozens of times, and nothing! But now we know that it's not because she's the only Gem hybrid... it's because she's the only _Peridot hybrid_!"

"So...?" I asked, trying not to sound rude, but unsure of what the significance was.

" _So_... If we're able to establish a baseline between three hybrids of humans, and completely separate Gems, I believe we'll be able to run a tracking algorithm, and locate every geo-organic hybrid on the earth!"

"Wow, that sounds great!" Steven said. "We're gonna have so many new friends!"

"So, how do we do that?" I asked Dorothy.

"Simple, I cooked these up while Emily was away." Dorothy reached into a drawer and produced three metallic wristbands, each with a simple, LED screen on it.

" _We_!" Perry shouted from the other room. " _We_ cooked them up!"

Dorothy ignored her. "As long as those three wristbands are being worn by Gem hybrids, our computer should instantly be able to calculate where the others are! Put them on! Put them on! Put them on!" She hopped on the spot, anxiously.

I was somewhat off put by Dorothy's eagerness, but Steven and Emily immediately put their bands on their wrists, so I resignedly did the same. The LED screen burst into life. "JET ERA 2 HUMAN FEMALE 25 YEARS VITAL SIGNS NORMAL."

I looked over, and Saw Emily's wristband had a similar reading. Steven was tapping on his and frowning in concern. "I don't think mine is working right." He said.

We all gathered round. Steven's wristband read, "PRXCNRMVO DIANCKENI ERA 0398174983MAN MALE 15 YEARS VITAL SIGNS NORMAL"

"Huh, must be a technical glitch..." Dorothy noted. "At any rate, the baseline has been established, so nothing to worry about."

The lab monitor switched to a map of the earth, and a vertical line swept across its surface, back and forth, like when people scan for signals in spy movies. Dorothy had exaggerated when she said 'instantly', but eventually, one by one, pinpricks of light began to pop. My heart raced as they climbed in numbers. 2, 5, 9, 16, 20, 30. When the lights stopped popping up, there seemed to be at least a hundred.

"This is incredible!" I gasped. "There are so many of us!"

"It's extraordinary!" Dorothy agreed.

Perry came running into the lab. "What? What are the results!?" She joined us in gaping in wonder at the screen.

"And... and look here!" Dorothy dragged a mouse across the counter, and zoomed in on a small island, near Beach City, which was crawling with dots. "There's a whole community of them on Mask Island!"

Steven cringed. "Oh, erm... Those aren't Gem hybrids... they're watermelon Stevens..."

Dorothy squinted at him in disappointment. "What...?"

Steven seemed reluctant to tell Dorothy that her experiment had flaws. "I have the power to bring plants to life. That island's got a bunch of watermelons, that look like me, living on it... Sorry..."

Perry gave a loud, snorting laugh. "Who was it who said they put more work into the scanners, Dorothy?" She teased.

"You did!" Dorothy angrily reminded her.

"Yeah... well you disagreed with me!"

"ALRIGHT!" Dorothy said, loudly, before Emily interrupted them again. "Clearly there's a margin of error, but it's statistically likely that at least half of these signals are coming from Gem hybrids like you three."

"Are we gonna do an X-Men: First Class- style recruitment montage?" Mandy asked, excitedly.

"I suppose that would be appropriate." Dorothy agreed. "I recommend we start with lone signals, to rule out... watermelon communities... Like here."

The screen zoomed in on a stretch of country, outside a town, to the south of America, where a solitary signal was found.

"Anyone got reason to think that that's not a Gem hybrid?" Dorothy asked.

We all looked around, getting no affirmation.

"Well then." Dorothy said, triumphantly. "Looks like you hybrids have a mission!"


	11. The Gemstone Carnival

The adventure took a hiatus for a few days. I had work to do, Mandy had a thesis to write, and my mum was desperate for an update on all that we'd discovered, but eventually, Steven, Emily, Mandy and I agreed, via group text, to get back on track.

It turned out there was a Warp Pad in Empire City. It sat in one of the bigger parks, which had been established around it, as the city grew. Gems had presumably put it there, to access a Gem structure, which had been withered by time, and was little more than a pile of rocks, now. Emily, Mandy and I met at the park, and stepped onto the pad.

"So... how does this thing work?" I asked Emily.

Emily cringed. "I was hoping you'd know."

"You and your aunts don't use these?"

"This is Era 1 tech. I mean, we knew this was a Gem structure, but this thing could have been a gazebo for all we knew..."

"Well, all Pearl did to get to the Sky Arena was step on it, so I assume it's operated by thought..." I suggested.

I focused on the map reference we'd seen on Dorothy's monitor, and focused my Gem powers on the pad, like I was trying to summon my boomerang through my feet. Quicker that I thought, a column of light shot upwards and consumed us. Again, I felt light and woozy for just a few moments, before gravity snatched me back, and I felt myself standing somewhere new. The feeling of being in a crowded city, one moment, and a luscious forest the next, was certainly going to be one I'd struggle to get used to.

"Hey guys!" Steven cheerfully greeted, from beside the pad. "I'm glad you made it!"

We started walking. According to a gadget Emily had brought, the hybrid was just a short walk through the woods, away. Through the trees, and down a hill, I could just about make out a small town, perpendicular to the way we were walking. This seemed like a nice place to live, if you weren't into the big city life.

Eventually, we reached the site where the hybrid had been, since we detected them in the lab, the other day. The four of us stopped and stared at the sight before us in shock and confusion.

"Emily..." I began, slowly. "Dorothy did say there was just one hybrid, right?"

Before us, was a large, ornately carved, wooden archway, telling us that we'd found the Gemstone Carnival. At each side of the entrance, were flat, wooden depictions of the performers; a strong man, an acrobat, a firebreather, a magician, and several others, and the only thing they all had in common was a Gem on each of their bodies.

Emily looked at the screen on her device. "Yup... one distinct biometric signature..."

"I guess they all thought it looked cool, so they copied the look?" Steven suggested, uncertainly.

"That feels like cultural appropriation..." I added, feeling uncomfortable.

We walked through the archway. The carnival looked like something out of an old-timey tv show, with striped, red and white tents, antique snack dispensing and game machines, and an announcer with an overly-dramatic voice. The only thing missing (to my immense relief) were exotic animals in cages.

"So, we have to find a Gem-human hybrid, in a whole carnival of people pretending to be Gem-human hybrids?" I summed up. "It's like they knew we were coming..."

"Maybe they did!" Steven pointed out. "Maybe the hybrid is half Sapphire! Wouldn't that be cool?"

I assumed Sapphires were the blue Gems who could see the future. "If that were the case, she'd probably be a fortune teller."

"I'm sorry?" A voice came from behind me.

I turned around, and realised I'd been standing right in front of the fortune-teller's tent. Sitting in front of it, at a small table with a crystal ball, was a person wrapped in a colourful shawl with a veil. All we could see of her, were her hands and chin, from which I estimated she was slightly older than me, on the back of her left hand, was a smooth, round Gem like Pearl's. Next to her crystal ball, was a phone, with which she was scrolling through Cheeper. I assumed she hadn't been listening to a word of our conversation, until she heard us say 'fortune teller'.

"You looking for a fortune teller?"

"Actually, we're looking for someone who's half alien." I said.

Her veil made her reaction hard to read, but she didn't smirk, like she thought I was joking. "Shouldn't be too difficult." She braced her hands over her crystal ball. "How many tentacles, and what shade of green?"

"They should look pretty human... save for the gemstone on their body, like that one on the back of your hand, there..." I said, suggestively.

"You mean this?" The fortune teller removed the Gem from her hand, revealing that it was held in place by a transparent sheet of elastic.

"Oh..."

"Yeah, I think we just wear these as a tribute to her."

The fortune teller gestured with her thumb, and we looked at the side of her tent, which featured a very old, and faded poster, featuring a woman with crimson skin, glowing eyes, and roaring flames coming out of her scalp, instead of hair. On her navel, was a flaming, red Gem, with an octagonal facet. The text read, 'The Amazing Pyrite'.

"Yes, that's her!" I said, triumphantly. "Where is she now?"

"No idea. I haven't worked here very long, and the others don't like to talk about her... but... I _am_ a fortune teller, you know..."

"And _I_ am a woman of science..." Emily condescendingly replied. "So, I'm gonna go win my girl a stuffed animal, and then ask around."

Emily kissed Mandy on the cheek, and made her way deeper into the carnival.

After Emily was gone, Steven ran up to the crystal ball. "Well I wanna have my fortune read! Can you predict my future?"

"Also, tell us about that Pyrite lady?" I added.

"Ooh! And could I be a professor when I graduate college?" Mandy excitedly asked.

The fortune teller cracked her knuckles, and poised her hands, over her crystal ball. "You..." She said to Steven. "I predict great developments in the lives of the people closest to you. And you..." She turned to Mandy. "I sense great wisdom and strength within you. Your career is within your control."

"Those are some very vague predictions..." I complained. "If you're a fraud, could you just tell us whether or not you know where Pyrite is?"

"JJ, this is her job! Be nice!" Mandy scolded.

I pouted indignantly. "Emily's allowed to be cynical..."

"She bribed me with a stuffed animal..."

"I'm sorry, should I consult the ball about Pyrite, or not?" The fortune teller asked, an irritated frown on her lips.

"Yeah, please!" Steven asked, no less excited.

The fortune teller focused on the crystal ball for a few moments more. "I sense Pyrite's energy in this place... It's strong, yet persistent... She came here a long time ago, and is here to this day, and yet the performers mourn for her..."

"Because she gave up her physical form to have a kid." I finished, annoyed with myself that I hadn't figured it out as soon as I saw the poster. "We're not looking for a Gem, we're looking for a hybrid! Obviously, she had a kid who inherited her pyrokinesis, and that's the firebreather!"

I remembered the firebreather from his wooden likeness at the carnival entrance. He was a rugged, young man with spikey, orange hair and his mum's gem on his navel. We thanked the fortune teller and went the way Emily had gone.

"So, what are we gonna say to this guy?" Mandy wondered aloud. "'Hi, you're not the only Gem hybrid, how do you feel about that?'"

"Pretty much. If nothing else, we'll just exchange contact details, so we can assemble in the event of a major, Gem incident." I replied.

We asked around the carnival, and soon found ourselves at a large, plastic tent. The entrance was unobstructed, but the interior was pitch black. We'd been assured that the firebreather was inside, but were all nervous about entering a tent that seemed vacant. Mandy stopped a skinny woman in a leotard, with a Gem attached to the middle of her chest, and asked her to affirm that we were allowed inside, and that we'd find the firebreather.

"Oh sure..." She affirmed. "In fact, he's waiting for you." She gave us a creepy smile, and walked off.

The three of us shared nervous looks and slowly made our way inside. Three phone camera lights illuminated and shone back and forth, falling on empty rows of seats, and the distant canopy above us. It hadn't escaped my attention that I was practically acting out a scene from a horror movie. I hoped, for their own sake, that no clowns jumped out at me and tried to scare me, as I feared I might punch them so hard, they'd die.

Suddenly, a voice came booming through the darkness. "You aren't the first Gem hunters to come poking around here... and you won't be the last."

"Hunters?" Steven called out, in confusion.

On the opposite side of tent, to the entrance, a pair of torches burst into flames, in the hands of the firebreather. The light illuminated him, the stage he stood on, and the figure, kneeling next to him, tied up and gagged, with a resentful look in her eye.

"Emily!" Mandy cried out, and ran towards the stage, before I could stop her.

"And if you don't respect Gems... I'll at least teach you to fear them!"

The firebreather held a torch to his mouth, and a jet of flames shot forwards and scorched the floor in front of the stage, which Mandy only just stopped in time to avoid. The firebreather leapt through the flames, as Mandy frantically backed away.

"Mandy! Look out!" Steven cried.

He summoned a shield on his wrist and hurled it forwards, sending it arching around Mandy, and at our adversary. The firebreather rolled to the side, and adopted a look of wide-eyed panic.

"I thought you guys were just dumb kids... what kind of tech are you packing!?"

"What tech? What are you talking about?" I quickly demanded.

"Why are you attacking us!?" Steven added.

With a scowl, the firebreather made a sweeping gesture, and a series of small explosions tore through the air towards us, forcing me to shield my face. I recovered just in time to summon my boomerangs, and counter a slash from the firebreather's flaming torches.

"Tell me what you want with the Gem hybrid!" He demanded.

I frowned in confusion. "You mean you're _not_ the hybrid?"

The firebreather cringed, like he had said something he shouldn't have. His expression quickly turned angry. He leant back and threw a high kick at me, which I saw coming from a mile away. Remembering what Pearl taught me, I grabbed his ankle, and twisted my body, throwing him into the side of the stage, sending his torches falling to the floor.

Before the firebreather could pick himself up, the tent was flooded with electronic light, from overhead.

"Tyrone, stop! You moron!" Came a familiar voice, from the entrance.

We turned to see the fortune teller racing into the tent. Carefully navigating to keep her flowing shawl from the fires, still burning around the floorspace.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm _so_ sorry!" She said, looking between me, Emily, Steven and Mandy, before rounding on the firebreather and scowling furiously. "Tech? Seriously? They're not Gem hunters! They're hybrids!"

She pulled her veil back, and we all gasped in surprise. Steven had called it the moment we arrived at the carnival. The fortune teller was a hybrid, and in the middle of her forehead, was a yellow Sapphire.


	12. Eye in the Sky

Yellow Sapphire was unlike blue ones, in that she had the power to see through space, rather than time. The cut had been created by the Diamonds, to be the ultimate surveillance Gem, that would be able to find resources on new planets, and any and all weaknesses in the Diamonds' enemies, but the Diamonds had made one crucial oversight... the fact that they were objectively terrible.

As soon as the first, and last, Yellow Sapphire emerged from her kindergarten on Homeworld, her mind was flooded with Gem warships, massacring organic life by the planet-load, and kindergartens, draining the life from the ground. And of course, Gem society wasn't much kinder to the Gems it was made of. The glittering metropolis of Homeworld's surface, was built atop catacombs crawling with Gems who had been abandoned, or chased away, sentenced to an eternity of hiding, and running from Gem-shattering robonoids.

Yellow Sapphire had emerged from the ground, taken one look at the universe, and ran, her Gem gripped with terror. A small part of her would always regret running, instead of staying, and fighting Homeworld from within, but she had been terrified that, if her disgust with her matriarchs was ever noticed, she'd be shattered.

Using her power, she fled through Homeworld undetected, eventually stealing a small ship and fleeing for the stars. In her mind, she searched the universe for a planet she could call home, and soon found the earth. The planet was covered in Gem structures, but all the Gems there had been corrupted. Sapphire immediately deduced that a war had been fought there, which had ended in an attack from the Diamonds. It was far from perfectly safe, but, for whatever reason, it seemed clear that it was a planet the Diamonds had abandoned, and didn't plan to return to.

Sapphire abandoned her ship upon landing on earth, and spent 200 years wandering its surface, and enjoying its charms, before she fell in love with a firebreather at a carnival, and eventually, had a daughter.

"Wow..." I reacted, once the fortune teller, (who had now introduced herself as Olivia) was finished.

"I'm confused..." Mandy said. "If you can see everything, then why did you sick him on us?" She nodded at the firebreather. "Didn't you know these guys were hybrids like you, already?"

"I can see anything." Olivia corrected. "Not everything. It's like a cross between astral projection, and Google earth, in my brain. I can see anywhere I want, on earth, but it's a big planet, I've never seen you guys before. My mom was the same, but, on a much bigger scale. She could see other planets and everything..."

"I guess she never thought to look at the earth's core." Steven guessed. "She probably wouldn't have come to earth if she'd known about the Cluster."

Rather than ask what the Cluster was, I sought to make sure I understood Olivia's situation. "So, you made up the Gem 'Pyrite' so anyone who came looking for Olivia, would find you instead." I said to Tyrone, the firebreather. "Probably because you're the toughest guy here who can pass for a Gem, with those firebreathing skills of yours."

In the light, we saw that Tyrone was wearing a belt across his chest, with several paper balls on them, which he'd explained were homemade grenades, to simulate Gem-like flame abilities.

"And because she's my half-sister." Tyrone added.

"And you do all of this to protect her from... Gem Hunters...?" I asked, remembering what he had said earlier.

"Sapphire was a pretty big attraction back in the day." Tyrone explained. "And a lot of people around here still talk about the alien witch who worked at this carnival, sometimes that attracts... unsavory characters."

"They're not very organised. Usually Tyrone's routine is enough to scare them away, and then we don't see any for a while." Olivia said. "It's difficult for me to follow them with my power, for long periods of time, so I'm not sure where they go."

"And you thought we were in that group?" I asked, surprised.

"I was surprised that you were a bunch of ladies and a kid." Olivia admitted. "Normally it's dudes with toxic masculinity problems."

"So how did you figure out we were hybrids?" Steven asked.

Olivia rubbed the back of her head, awkwardly. "I was watching the fight... and after I saw you summoning weapons... I... looked under your clothes..."

Mandy immediately turned bright pink, and threw her arms over her clothed body, defensively. "You can do that!?"

Olivia blushed too. "I'm not doing it now!"

"Wow, the Gem power of perversion?" Emily smirked, still sitting on the stage, since she had been untied. "It's a wonder you ever get any work done."

Olivia scowled at her, resentfully. "Yeah, nothing gets me going, quite like seeing people's individual nipples, from immediately underneath their bras..." She sarcastically retorted.

As soon as she'd finished her quip, Olivia's eyes flew over to Steven, who was staring embarrassedly at the tent's floor.

"Aaanyway, getting back to more child-friendly conversation." She suggested. "Why _are_ you guys looking for other hybrids?"

"No particular reason." I admitted. "We all thought we were the only hybrids a couple of weeks ago, but we just found out there are dozens of us, so I guess we're trying to get a community going. It's been great, getting to know other hybrids, and we even know a bunch of Gems, between us."

"And now that I think about it, your ability will really help speed this along." Emily added. "I mean, this was our first mission together, but we've foreseen more than a few false leads in the future."

"Plus, if you don't feel safe here, we got, like, two bases you could probably crash at?" I suggested.

Olivia smiled gratefully. "It's a kind offer, but we're a pretty tight knit family here, and we can take care of ourselves. But I'd love to hang out with you guys sometime, and look for other hybrids. Where do you meet?"

We exchanged contact details with Olivia and explained the Warp Pad system to her. Then, we spent most of the rest of the day talking, sharing stories of our Gems and their powers, and enjoying the entertainment the carnival offered, which included Emily following through on her promise, and winning Mandy a large, stuffed bird.

After a warm farewell, Steven, Emily, Mandy and I left the carnival, and began the walk, back to the Warp Pad.

"This is so great! I can't wait to meet all of the hybrids!" Steven cheered, as we walked. "Maybe we should get a clubhouse! Or a base of operations!"

I smirked. "Didn't you say that temple of yours has infinite space inside it?"

"Oh yeah." Steven remembered. "That'll work!"

Eventually, we reached the Warp Pad, and said goodbye to Steven, as he warped home, and then took our turn, warping to Empire City.

-x-x-x-

The next day, Mandy and I made our way to Emily's lab, ready for our next group mission. When we arrived, we saw that Olivia, and the shorter Peridot were already there. Olivia was wearing a cute top and jeans, rather than her shawl and veil, meaning we could see what she actually looked like. She had a thick build, and bushy, red hair which hung below her shoulders, and a cute row of freckles, under her eyes. Her yellow Gem glittered merrily in the lab's light.

"Hey guys." I called, to the lab in general, before turning to Peridot. "Where's Steven?"

"He's... going through some things..." Peridot answered dismissively. "He found out some things about his mom, which everyone's freaking out over... He asked me to tell you he's gonna need a while, before coming on a mission again."

"Oh, that sucks." I sighed. "Hope he's okay..."

"So, did you want to go on the mission, in his place?" Mandy asked, surprised.

"Well naturally. You may as well have someone who actually knows about Gems, tagging along on these things." She said, smugly, but then she frowned. "That... and... things haven't been great for me, either... Lapis left me and took our barn into space... So, I guess I've got a lot of time on my hands."

Perry crouched down to Peridot's height, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Sorry 5XG, you're always welcome to hang out with us!" She said, in a warm voice. Suddenly, Perry gasped in realisation. "You could help me animate my second season of Firefly!"

Peridot lifted an eyebrow in intrigue. "I'd need to take a look at the script, first... I won't lend my skills to an unworthy homage."

"In the meantime..." Dorothy sternly cut in. "I've been searching for your next potential hybrid. There's a strong possibility of this one being a match, but I wasn't going to suggest it yet since it's very far from the nearest Warp Pad."

On the lab's monitor, Dorothy highlighted a signal, in the heart of an enormous forest, in Alaska.

"But with Olivia's power, we can ascertain whether or not this is a hybrid, before you embark on a long journey, potentially wasting precious days of your fleeting, human lives!"

Olivia stepped up to the monitor. "Alright, let's take a look."

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, they were glowing bright yellow, and her Gem followed suit. A quiet chiming sound, like the Warp Pad, rang through the lab.

"I can see the forest... There's this clearing with a huge rock in it... and... some kind of machine with a Gem on it? No sign of the hybrid..."

"I should mention that this location is an approximation of the areas in which they spend the most time, it may take you a while to find them, if you find them at all." Dorothy pointed out.

"Oh!" Olivia suddenly remarked, her eyes and Gem still glowing. "There _is_ a Warp Pad but... It's been cracked down the middle."

"Any sign of a cause?" Dorothy nervously asked.

"There's a rock in the middle of it, but... it's not big enough to have wrecked the pad just by falling on it, someone broke the Warp Pad on purpose... Maybe it was..."

Suddenly, Olivia cried out in alarm and the glow vanished from her eyes.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Are you okay?" Emily added.

"Yeah, just... surprised..." Olivia said, sounding short of breath. "Something just flew right through my FOV. Scared me."

"What was it?" Peridot asked.

Olivia shook her head. "It was moving too fast. Hang on."

Her eyes and Gem lit up again for a few moments, before she sighed in defeat. "No, it's gone. Must have vanished into the trees."

"Well at any rate, if it's as fast as you describe, it seems likely that it's a Tektite hybrid." Dorothy informed us. "Scouting Gems with the ability to manipulate airflow, allowing them to run at almost untraceable speeds."

"And they're living in the middle of nowhere, and they destroyed the nearest Warp Pad..." Emily pointed out. "Doesn't sound like they want visitors..."

The lab fell silent. It clearly occurred to everyone that this might be a hybrid we should just leave alone. I found myself wondering what Steven would say, if he was here. _"Maybe they only want to be alone because they think they are alone! Maybe if they meet us, they'll_ _wanna_ _be friends!"_ I imagined him saying.

"So far, all the hybrids have thought they were the only one..." I began, thoughtfully. "Maybe this one cut themself off because they had a bad experience with humans? Maybe they even met some bad Gems, if they broke the Warp Pad? The point is, meeting some other hybrids could be just what they need."

"Yeah, I think we should go." Emily agreed.

"Well, it's a day's hike from the nearest Warp Pad..." Perry nervously reminded us, mainly looking at Emily. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"Well, I hate the great outdoors as much as the next big city gal, but I guess it could be fun." Emily replied.

"Well on the flipside, this shouldn't be surprising from a lady who lives in a tent, but I love camping!" Olivia cheerfully stated.

"I guess, if nothing else, we could think of it as a team building exercise?" I said, semi-jokingly.

"Then it's settled!" Perry said, sounding half-excited and half-worried. "We'll start packing immediately! You'll need to bring clothes, food, medicine, some defensive gadgets in case the hybrid is hostile..." She kept muttering to herself, as she walked from the lab, through the door that led to Emily, Perry and Dorothy's apartment.

"So, does anyone need a few days to plan, or...?" I prompted, to Emily and Olivia.

"Nope." Emily said.

"I can be ready in a couple hours." Olivia added.

"Alright then. We can meet at the Empire City Warp Pad." I smiled. "Ready team... Break!"


	13. Gem Camp

Back at mine and Mandy's apartment, I raced back and forth, filling a large, camping backpack with everything I'd need, checking my phone every few moments, to read texts from Olivia and Emily, stating what they'd be able to bring. It turned out, Olivia had a large, four-person tent, and, as Perry had said, Emily would bring medicine and any tech we would need. Emily even mentioned she'd be able to keep our phones charged, and connected, for the entire trip, which I found impressive.

It seemed it was down to me to provide the bulk of our rations, so after I lined the bottom of my bag with a few days' worth of warm clothes, and toiletries, I emptied our kitchen of all food that didn't need constant refrigeration, after Emily assured me she'd be able to de-can, cook and serve anything I brought.

"Hey... JJ...?" Mandy nervously grabbed my attention, as I worked.

I stopped and looked up, sensing the distress in her voice. "What's up?" I asked, warmly.

"I'm not coming on the trip." She said, gloomily. "I've just... got a lot of work to do, and I've missed a few too many lectures..."

I'd known Mandy since I was five, and I knew when she was lying. "What's wrong? Come on, talk to me..."

Mandy stared firmly at the carpet and rubbed her arm. "Well, it's like you said... This is gonna be a good bonding, team-building experience for you, Emily and Olivia..."

"And you...?" I prompted, hopefully.

"No! Because I'm just... I'm..." Mandy trailed off, as though hoping I'd figure out the end of her sentence. I didn't.

"What are you?"

Mandy frowned in frustration. "I'm human, JJ! I'm not a hybrid, I don't know anything about Gems, or what you're all going through."

"And you think I do!?"

"Yes! You know all about how it feels to grow up alone, the only one of your kind, with powers and abilities no one understands! There's seven billion of me..."

"Not like you, there aren't!" I insisted. "Mandy, I don't want you around for your skills and expertise, I want you around because you're my friend!"

"And when you come back, that's what I'll be, but in the meantime, you don't need a friend to make contact with a potentially hostile hybrid, you need other hybrids..."

I looked at Mandy's sad, brown eyes. In my heart, I knew I wouldn't be able to talk her into coming.

"Okay, I'll drop it." I sighed. "But promise me you'll talk to someone about this while I'm away, like the Peridots, or Steven and his friend, Connie."

"Alright, I promise." Mandy agreed.

I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders, and pulled Mandy into a warm hug. "I love you, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, you too." She smiled.

With a heavy heart, I bid Mandy farewell, and began the walk, through town, to the park which contained the Warp Pad. When I got there, Emily and Olivia, and all three Peridots, were already there. Like me, Olivia and Emily had both changed into sweaters and boots and Emily was wearing a beanie, which made sense, since only half of her scalp had hair. Perry was nervously rummaging through Emily's backpack, making sure she had everything, and issuing some last-minute advice.

"Now remember, you humans are pack animals, so getting along will be critical to your emotional health, but if you do fall out, you can call me any time, to fool your brain into thinking you're still in a functional herd. And keep your layers on! The climate where you're going could have a detrimental effect on your immune system if you're exposed to the air for too long! Ugh... humans are nerve-rackingly fragile!"

"Perry, Emily is a fully matured, human woman." Dorothy pointed out. "She knows how human bodies work!"

"It doesn't hurt to be reminded, Dorothy!" Perry snapped.

"It doesn't help to patronise her, Perry!" Dorothy snapped back.

"Hi guys!" I called, as I approached, sensing another classic Perry and Dot shouting match, looming.

"JJ!" Emily called, but her smile vanished, when she saw I was alone. "Where's Mandy?"

"She's not coming." I sighed. "She's feeling kind of useless to the team, since she's not a Gem..."

"What? That's ridiculous!" Peridot snorted. "I'm not a human, and I'm coming!"

"I know!" I agreed.

"Do you think I should..." Emily started, but trailed off, and frowned. "No... we're all ready for a mission."

"We can wait, if you wanna go talk to her?" Olivia offered.

"Nah, she would have come to say bye, if she wanted to be talked out of it." Emily reasoned. "I'll talk to her about it when we get back."

"I think she'd appreciate that." I agreed.

"You humans are so emotional..." Peridot complained. "Are we going on a mission, or what?"

"Not without these, you're not." Dorothy said.

I hadn't noticed that she was holding, by her side, two metal disks, the size of hula hoops. She rolled them onto the pad, where Olivia held them upright.

"What are those?" I asked.

Dorothy squinted excitedly. "You'll see...!" She said, dramatically.

"We'll see you guys in a few days." Emily said, while Perry gave her one last, tearful hug. "Alaska, here we come!"

Emily's sentence was punctuated by a glare of light, and a musical chime, as the Warp Pad shot us north, and as the light faded, I felt a rush of icy air, like we'd been warped to the bottom of a frozen lake. While I quickly fetched my own hat and gloves from my bag, Emily carefully set the metal disks on the ground, and stared at them for a moment, her Gem glowing, as she interfaced with the machines, whatever they were.

"Presenting the newest advancement from Peridot Labs!" She dramatically declared.

With a whir of mechanics, the two discs deployed like pages of a pop-up book, taking on flying saucer-like shapes. From one, a series of antennas of various lengths grew upwards, and on the other, four small satellite dishes.

"One remote satellite signal relay, which will give us perfect cell signal anywhere on earth." Emily proudly said, holding a hand out to the saucer with the dishes on it. "And a water condensator, which will produce all the clean water we'll need, from the clouds themselves!" She indicated to the other device.

Her Gem still glowing, Emily commanded the devices to lift into the air, with barely a sound. The signal relay lifted a few dozen feet into the air, like it was uncertain about abducting one of us, while the other shot skywards and, within moments, was lost amongst the cottony blanket of clouds that filled the sky.

With Emily's impressive display concluded, I took in our surroundings. We were in a forest, snow coating the ground and trees, the smell of sap and leaves strong in the air, and the chattering of the birds was prominent. There was no sign of the Gem structure the Warp Pad had been built for.

Emily produced the navigational device she'd used to find the Gemstone Carnival, and began to lead us towards our next hybrid's location. We walked through the forest, climbed over rocks and waded through streams. The minutes rolled into hours, as the gleaming white blur of the sun moved across the sky, on the other side of the clouds. I couldn't remember the last time I'd exercised for so long, but with the strength my Gem provided, I was just about managing. Emily seemed to be struggling a tiny bit, too, but Olivia and Peridot looked as carefree and chipper, six hours into our hike, as they did when we set off.

As we walked, Olivia told us several amusing anecdotes about mishaps at the carnival, and problematic patrons she and her brother had had to deal with, and Peridot had told a riveting story of coming to earth to check on a world-destroying geoweapon, being captured by the Crystal Gems, and then working together to stop said geoweapon.

I was captivated by the wildlife the forest had to offer. Growing up in the city, I wasn't accustomed to anything more remarkable than a possum, but on our walk, we saw reindeer, some moose, a few bears and even a small pack of wolves. Whenever anything potentially dangerous came into view, Emily would brandish something which looked like a blaster pistol fresh out of Star Wars, which she assured us was non-lethal, but before she ever got a chance to use it, Olivia would step in front of her and stare the animal down, until it backed away. Frankly, I didn't know which of the two hybrids were scarier.

Even with breaks every few hours, my feet were screaming by the time we finished our final push, to our destination. Almost an hour earlier, the sun had set completely, and Olivia had suggested we set up camp, but it seemed impractical, when we'd only have to pack up, walk another hour, only to get set up again, the next day, so Emily and Peridot had led the group, their Gems casting a cool green light onto the ground in front of us. I had no idea Gems could do that, but doubted it was something me or Jet could do, since Jets were black.

Finally, we reached the last known co-ordinates of the hybrid. Although we couldn't see a thing outside of the two Peridot's light beams, we'd left the dense forest, and entered the earthy clearing Olivia had mentioned. We called out a few times for the hybrid, but got no reply, so Olivia set down her bag and, with a little help from me and Emily, quickly had the tent assembled. I was somewhat relieved when we were inside, and a lamp had been lit and hung from the ceiling. The creepy, dark forest was starting to get to me.

The four of us sat in the tent, the three of us with body heat to preserve, wrapped in sleeping bags, happily tearing into packaged food, and downing the most delicious water I'd ever tasted, from metal bottles, Emily's drone had provided.

"I'm so glad we're doing this." Olivia said. "Again, it's typical of someone who lives in a tent, but camping is so great."

"I have to admit, I was confused by the concept at first..." Peridot thought aloud. "After all, humans dedicate so much of their time to staying indoors for as long as possible, but there is a sense of freedom to travelling hundreds of miles away from your home and belongings, just to dedicate yourself to appreciating this planet's beauty... It's like when Lapis flew away with the barn, except... this time It's my choice!"

"Well I'm really enjoying the comradery, the fresh air and the wildlife." Emily contributed. "But I'm pretty sure if I didn't have internet out here, I'd be going insane right now. Think of me what you will." She smirked, as she scrolled through something on her phone. "Hey, do you think it would make Mandy feel better or worse, if we sent her a commemorative selfie?"

"I think she'd like that." I replied.

Without leaving our sleeping bags, Olivia and I wriggled, caterpillar-like to either side of Emily, while Peridot eagerly fell into her lap, forcing the three of us to crane our heads around her triangular hair. Once the photo was sent, and enough food had been eaten, we were soon ready to call it a night, tired as we were. Even Peridot decided to try sleeping for a change, in the interest of getting the full, camping experience. After almost half a day of hiking, I was sound asleep, almost the moment the light went off, and my head hit my sleeping bag's pillow.


	14. Homeworld Ghost Stories

I was woken bright and early the next morning, by a combination of the cacophonous chattering of the birds, and Emily's fingertips, gently brushing my face. As it turned out, while Olivia and I were quite happy to be wrapped up in our sleeping bags all night, Emily was a rather more restless sleeper, and had broken free of her confines and was splayed out, across the middle of the tent. It was a wonder the cold hadn't woken her.

As I gently lifted her hand, and placed it by her side, Emily muttered something in her sleep, about Mandy, and an anime I knew they were both fans of. I giggled. It was pretty adorable that Emily was dreaming about her. Sitting up, I noticed that Peridot was nowhere to be seen. I decided to get dressed and join her outside.

We'd kept the bulk of our belongings in a small, storage tent, including our warmer clothes, so we'd have more sleeping room. As such, my jeans and t-shirt were rolled into a ball in my corner of the tent, next to my boots. I quickly and quietly pulled them on, then made my egress in the same fashion, carefully climbing over Emily as I went.

With snow everywhere, I had to shield my face from sunlight, coming at me from all directions. After my eyes adjusted, I glimpsed Peridot, not far from the tent, but before I greeted her, I raced over to the storage tent, the icy air biting into my entire upper half. I snatched the first coat I could find, only realising after I pulled it on, that it was Emily's. I was sure she wouldn't mind, although I was somewhat nervous about the fact that the pockets were full of her gadgets. I hoped none of them were explosive.

Death by frostbite staved, I took in our fully-lit campsite for the first time. I saw much of what Olivia had described, yesterday morning, after using her powers. We were in an enormous, circular clearing, in the centre of which, was a tall, round boulder, the size of some of Empire City's smaller skyscrapers. I was no geologist, but I'd guess it had wound up here after a volcanic eruption or something (again, total guess). At its feet, were the site's Warp Pad, broken as Olivia had described, and the Gem machine she had mentioned.

The machine had been savagely torn apart, as if by some ferocious animal, but I reconstructed it in my mind, like a jigsaw, imagining what it had once looked like. It had been a tall, cylindrical device, with a casing make of glass and black metal. At one end, there was a large, red Gem, and at the other, a long drill, surrounding by four smaller drills, and four spindly, spider-like legs. On one side of the wreckage, was a deep, crater-like cave in the rock, and on the other, Peridot was clutching her hair, and muttering anxiously to herself.

"This is bad... very very bad... We should never have come here... Why did we come here...? All we had to do was ask Olivia to describe the machine she saw! How _cloddy_ would you have to be!? Oh my stars... Oh my stars... Oh my stars..."

"Peridot...?" I nervously greeted, as I walked over to her.

Peridot screeched in alarm, and span around, bracing her arms in a fighting stance which (thanks to Pearl) I knew was poor.

"Is everything okay...?" I asked, rhetorically.

"Oh... Jayla..." Peridot greeted, breathlessly. "No, everything's _not_ okay. We need to wake the others and leave immediately!"

"What, why!?" I demanded. "What is that thing?" I asked, regarding the destroyed machine Peridot had been staring at.

"It's a long story!" Peridot snapped, dismissively.

"Then you're telling it!" I ordered. "We didn't come all this way, just to go home!"

In spite of my protests, I respected Peridot's urgency, and helped her quickly but gently wake up Emily and Olivia, and catch them up on the situation. Within minutes, they were dressed, and the four of us sat on some rocks and logs, we arranged in a circle, so Peridot could tell us what was wrong.

"I... suppose this is fitting, as Steven tells me this is a staple of a complete camping experience..." Peridot laughed, nervously.

"What is?" Olivia asked.

"A ghost story..." Peridot dramatically replied, sending shivers down my spine (or it could have been the cold). "The machine you see behind me is called an Injector. Gems use them to grow more Gems at isolated sites we call Kindergartens. Officially, Earth has two Kindergartens, one near Beach City, and another in the Sahara Desert. This place wasn't in the report I was given before I came to earth, because it's not a Kindergarten... It failed."

"Why...?" Emily asked, in a hushed whisper.

"Well... that's where the story comes into it. It's a horror story passed around between Peridots and other Kindergarteners, a cautionary tale, if you will. Most assume it never really happened, myself included... They say that, back in Era 1, on a planet matching many of the characteristics of this one, a team of Peridots picked a site for a Beta Kindergarten, and messed up bad. The soil was more than inappropriate for Gem production, it was toxic!

Ordinarily, the fluid an injector pumps into the ground takes decades to form a solid Gem, and centuries for that Gem to emerge, but here, it was as though the Gem couldn't stand to remain in the ground for a moment! The second the injector penetrated the soil, there was an explosion as a handful of partially formed Gem flakes burst from the ground! They could barely hold a form for a moment, but that form lashed out at anything that moved, grasping for another Gem to devour, to make itself whole!

That Warp Pad over there wasn't broken by an outcast, to keep others away... It was broken by Kindergarteners, throwing a rock into the air, before warping away... to keep a monster in!"

My heart was pounding anxiously as Peridot reached the end of her story. I was about to comment, when all four of us screeched in alarm, in reaction to a gale, which came out of nowhere, and tore through the campsite for just a few seconds, before stopping abruptly. The wind had made me flinch, but before I closed my eyes, I could have sworn I saw something black, shooting overhead.

"It's the monster!" Peridot whined. "It's taken on a spectral form! As soon as it's manifested a corporeal body, it'll tear our Gems from ours and swallow them!"

Emily patted down her pockets, before squinting at me, accusingly. "JJ, you're wearing my coat..." She pointed out, before unapologetically pulling my zip half-way down and fishing her scanner out of one of the inside pockets. "There was just a 33% spike in geo-organic pheromones, it's not a Gem monster, it's the Gem-human hybrid!" She took a deep breath. "HELLO!? YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE AFRAID! WE'RE LIKE YOU!"

"Hang on." Olivia said, before her eyes and Gem began glowing again.

While Olivia searched with her power, and Emily tuned her device, with a determined frown on her face, Peridot pouted in frustration. "It seems downright hazardous to assume the story is unrelated to our current situation." She complained. "That crater over there is proof that a misformed Gem monster burst from the ground over there several thousand years ago."

"Well... maybe she got better, and then fell in love with a human?" I suggested, optimistically.

Peridot looked at me like I was an idiot, and to be honest, I kind of felt like one. "Jayla, there was nothing _to_ get better! The human equivalent would be a sack containing 10% of a mutilated corpse!"

"Well regardless, the scanner says there's a hybrid here now." I pointed out. "Your monster had thousands of years to leave this place!"

As Olivia's eyes returned to normal, with a look of defeat in them, Emily banged on the side of her scanner, irritably. "Well... I think I've shaved a few dozen meters off the hybrid's estimated location radius. Let's head off in the direction it..."

As Emily spoke, my eye was drawn to something spinning down through the air, like a helicopter seed. It was about to fall to the ground in the middle of the small group, when I caught it. It was a feather... about a foot and a half in length. We all looked up, but there was no sign of the large bird that had lost it.

"Did the hybrid drop this?" I guessed. "I suppose if they're a survivalist type, living out here, they'd have a fur or feather coat."

"JJ... step back and hold the feather up for size reference." Emily requested. I complied, and Emily snapped a picture of me, holding it, on her phone. "I don't know much about wildlife, but I haven't seen a single bird out here, that had feathers that big... I'll send a pic to the nerd lab, and see what they can find."

We all got to walking in the direction the hybrid had flown, and before long, Emily's phone started to ring. Emily answered, and put it on speakerphone.

"Emily." Dorothy politely greeted. "I got your..."

"Emily? How are you!?" Perry's voice loudly interrupted. "Did you sleep okay? Remember, sleeping in unnatural positions because of new habitation circumstances can lead to spinal injuries! And have you eaten breakfast yet?"

"Perry, what did we talk about!?" Dorothy scolded.

"You talked about _your_ apathy for Emily's wellbeing!"

"You have some strange synonyms for 'trust' and 'respect', Perry!"

Emily nursed an oncoming headache, and whispered, "Oh my god..."

Trying not to laugh, I gently took the phone from her. "Hi guys, we're all here too!" I greeted, before adding, too quietly for them to hear me, "In case that makes any difference..." Even though I knew from experience that it didn't.

"Oh, hi Jayla!" Perry greeted. "That was a really pretty picture Emily just sent of you!"

"Although we're confused as to why it was sent, and why you're holding a large feather." Dorothy added.

"The feather was dropped by the hybrid." I explained. "But we don't think it's from any birds native to this region. Can you find out what kind of bird it came from, please? That might tell us where the hybrid's from, or where they've been."

"Well, avian biology isn't exactly what we specialise in, but I don't see wh..."

The phone line went silent went silent for a few moments, before a solid tone declared the call to be over. I looked at Emily worriedly. Her relay drone had flown just above the tree line, after we'd entered the forest. Emily's Gem had barely begun to glow, presumably to summon her drone for maintenance, when the drone's mangled remains came crashing through the canopy, and into the dirt, next to us, with a burst of sparks.

The four of us shared an anxious look, but I didn't waste a second further, before summoning all my Gem strength in my legs, and leaping up through the canopy, shielding my face from the whips and scrapes from a hundred twigs, on the way up. I soared above the trees, and soon saw a figure darting away, through the forest. It was still a little fast to get a good look of, but one thing I definitely saw, was a massive pair of feathery wings, not a coat, at all.

I landed amongst the branches of a tree, and leapt in the other hybrid's direction, as fast as I could. Sprinting along treetops was far from an exact science, as anyone who's done it will tell you. Most of the branches snapped or bent beneath my feet, and got a face full of leaves on several occasions. I lost sight of the hybrid very quickly, and soon after, fell painfully through the canopy, getting several bruises, and even more scrapes, before landing, face-first in the dirt. All things considered, it wasn't my finest moment...

"WAIT, COME BACK!" I shouted. "WE'RE NOT GONNA HURT YOU! WE'RE HYBRIDS TOO! WE JUST WANNA TALK!"

"JJ!" Through the trees, the rest of the team hurried to catch up with me.

"Oh gosh, you're hurt!" Olivia gasped.

"I'm fine..." I argued, wanting to focus on the hybrid.

"You're bleeding." Olivia sternly corrected.

I looked myself over, and saw a bleeding scratch on the back of my left hand.

"Peridot, could you please go get the first-aid kit?" Olivia asked.

"Right away!" Peridot confirmed, before running back to the campsite.

"What's this hybrid's problem?" Emily asked, squinting in the direction they had flown. "When I thought I was the only one, I'd have sold the lab to meet someone else like me."

"Maybe they don't believe us?" I guessed. "People don't live by themselves in the middle of nowhere, if they're prone to loving and trusting people."

"Speaking of being cut off..." Emily produced the still sparking wreckage of her signal relay drone, and frowned sadly.

"You can't fix it?" I guessed, from her expression.

"I could knock together something crude, but it'd take me a while..."

"What happened to it?" I asked. Obviously, the hybrid had destroyed it, before flying away, but how?

"It was pierced in eight places, like it was stabbed by some really weird knives, really fast."

I looked at the drone, the punctures were spaced out in a strange pattern, for a knife. There was a row of six, in groups of three, and beneath each three, were the seventh and eighth. I knew what they looked like, but it was too bizarre to say out loud, at least without building up to it first.

"Never fear! Nurse Peridot is here!" Peridot cried, returning to the group.

While Peridot and Olivia cleaned and dressed my open wounds, I caught them up on what I'd seen.

"Guys... that feather didn't come from a bird... the hybrid has actual wings..."

"What...?" Emily reacted, with skeptisism. "But not, like, as a part of their body, right? It's gotta be something they summon, like your boomerangs."

"No." Peridot argued. "This feather proves that those wings are physical. If they were a hardlight manifestation, they couldn't exist away from the host. Observe."

Peridot winced, as she plucked a yellow hair from her head, and dropped it. Almost as soon as it left her hand, it fizzled away, like my boomerangs.

"But... we're all Gem-human hybrids, and our Gems didn't mutate us like that..." Emily said.

"Maybe it has something to do with Peridot's story?" Olivia suggested. "Maybe that shard monster somehow had a human kid, and having shards instead of a Gem, messed with their DNA?"

"Well... if it did, I don't think it just gave them wings." I said, ominously. "Look at those puncture marks on the drone... don't those look like massive talons to you?"

Emily looked at the drone, and her eyes slowly opened in alarm. "I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner..."

Emily took the feather from Olivia and ran her scanner up and down it, then tapped her foot anxiously, as the results calculated.

"Oh my god..." She breathed. "The Gem shards didn't mutate a human, making it look like a bird... it's not human at all! It's part Gem and part... bald eagle!"

With perfect timing, the predatory screech of a bird of prey echoed through the forest.


	15. Inter-Species Relations

"Of course, it all makes sense now!" Peridot said, as we sprinted back to the camp. "The flake monster's form would never have been sustainable in the long run! On a lifeless planet, it would have been dead in a few days, but earth is teeming with deoxyribonucleic acid, rife with schematics for viable bodies!"

"So, you're saying it just came into contact with bird DNA, and produced a hardlight body which matched that, rather than looking like a Gem?" Emily asked.

"Well obviously it's a bit of both." I pointed out. "Since it's super-fast, can rip a drone apart and manipulate the wind."

"It must be so lonely..." Olivia sighed, as we ran. "I mean, it never had bird parents, or other Gems to talk to..."

"At any rate, it doesn't have the reasoning skills of a human or a Gem." Peridot stated. "We have to get the heck out of here before it eats us!"

As Peridot's words rang through my ears, I found I took issue with them, they weren't right. We ran into the clearing, and I slowed to a stop, resting my hands on Olivia and Emily's shoulders, prompting them to do the same.

"Whoa, guys... hang on... that isn't true. If the... bird... Gem flake... thing..." I trailed off, as I realised we didn't have a name for what this thing was.

"Bird Person?" Emily suggested, with a smirk.

I smirked back at the reference. "Nice. If the Bird Person WAS just a monster, it could have torn our throats out, the second it saw us, but it didn't! I just watched us from afar, probably because it's never seen anything like us before, at least not you, Peridot."

"So? Lots of earth predators exercise logical caution! That doesn't mean they can be reasoned with!" Peridot argued.

"No, but then later, when we're trying to find out more about it, what does it do? Crush our signal relay, cutting us off! I really think we could make contact with this creature if we try."

"That... must have been a coincidence!" Peridot insisted, although her voice was uncertain. "There's no way it just guessed what a satellite dish was!"

"No." Came a voice, from behind Peridot, making us all jump. "I've seen them before."

Half way up the rock, in the clearing, a figure was clinging to its surface. As soon as we saw it, it dropped towards us, landing violently on top of Peridot, prompting a startled yelp and a small cloud of dust. The figure's appearance and voice were unmistakably masculine. They stood over six feet tall, around Garnet's height, and although they were humanoid, no one could mistake them for a human.

The Bird Person's skin alternated smoothly between dark brown and black, but his head and neck were a pale white, as was his smooth, shoulder-length hair. His face was more or less human, save for his bright yellow eyes, and pointed, beak-like nose above a frowning mouth. His arms split at the shoulder, between his hands, and a glorious pair of wings, which hung around his feet like a majestic cape. Around the base of the Bird Person's neck, were five light blue Gem shards, arranged like a tribal necklace.

The Bird Person's fingernails were vicious and sharp enough, but his scale-covered feet ended in blade-like talons, between which he was gripping Peridot's head, oblivious to her struggles.

"Let... go of me... you... feathery... clod!" Peridot complained, as she pushed fruitlessly against the scaly foot.

"What... are you?" I demanded, only slightly worried about being crass.

Bird Person looked between the three of us who weren't underneath his foot, and squinted menacingly. "When I destroyed your drone, I thought you'd take the hint that you're not welcome here."

His voice was deep and menacing, yet smooth, like the voice of a magical dragon in a fantasy movie.

"Look, you don't have to be scared of us!" Olivia insisted. "We're not what you think we..."

Bird Person interrupted. "This one is a deformed Peridot." He lifted his foot slightly, taking Peridot's head with it, before stepping down again. "And you three are hybrids of humans and a Peridot, a Sapphire, and some kind of new Gem. I'm not interested. Get out of my forest."

He gave a mighty flap of his wings, causing a gust which almost blew us off our feet, and hoisted him up into the air, before he vanished over the top of the monolithic boulder.

Peridot quickly climbed to her feet, and frantically straightened her hair. "CLOD!" She furiously shouted at the sky. "Deformed? Really? Obviously, he knows nothing about Era 2 Gems!"

"Obviously..." I agreed, thoughtfully. "Otherwise, he'd have known what a Jet was. But how does he know about Era 1 Gems? And satellite dishes?"

"And if he's not part human, how come he looks and sounds human?" Olivia added.

"He doesn't." Peridot answered. "He looks like a Howlite. They're terraforming Gems who often work with Lapis..." Peridot ground to a halt, blinked several times and cringed in distress. "Lapis Lazulis..." She sighed. "They manipulate airflow to create optimal atmospheric conditions for construction."

"But we're all hybrids..." Olivia began, sounding confused. "And we look like our organic halves. Why doesn't he just look like an eagle?"

"Because you're hybrids of whole Gems and self-reproducing human cells. In your bodies, your Gems are producing holographic DNA sequences which mimic your human ones. He's the opposite. In his case, he's using bird DNA to fill the gaps in his Gem body." Peridot explained.

"He must have at least some of the memories all Era 1 Gems are programmed with!" Emily added.

"So, he's not a monster!" I realised, to my relief. "He's just a grumpy git who's been alone for too long! Maybe if we get him to talk to us, we can..."

From the peak of the boulder, Bird Person's distant voice called out, "Nope!"

Emily frowned in frustration. "Right, no more Miss Nice Gal. I'm gonna go up there and kick his ass, until he agrees to hear us out!"

She reached into the pockets of her coat, which I was still wearing, and produced four of what looked like bicycle handles, with flat disks on one end, and red buttons on the other. In demonstration, she pressed a disk against the rock, pushed the corresponding button, and the handle stuck firmly in place.

"Peridot Labs climbing gear." She explained. "I only have two sets. Who's coming?"

"I'm... afraid of heights..." Olivia embarrassedly confessed.

"And I'm afraid of Gem-piercing talons..." Peridot sarcastically added.

I took two of the handles from Emily, and offered a fist bump with my other hand. "Let's do it."

The handles made climbing surprisingly easy. Rather than worrying about footholds and unstable rock, all I had to do was hoist myself up the rock a couple of feet at a time, which, with my strength, was all too easy. Emily climbed effortlessly at my side, as we quickly ascended. The forest shrank away below us, giving us a breathtaking view of the trees, and the surrounding lakes, rivers and mountains.

When we got half way up the rock, I heard the sound of rustling feathers, and looked up to see Bird Person flying overhead. Finally getting a good view of him in flight, I noticed that he was majestic, like an angel, with a wingspan the size of a small bus. He circled above us, drifting down on the wind, before slamming into the rock at our side, his talons piercing the stone like knives through styrofoam. He hung from its surface as casually as someone might lean on a handrail.

"What's your plan here?" He asked, condescendingly. "You spend half an hour climbing to my nest, at which point you imagine I'm cornered? You do realise I can fly, right? Can you?"

Before I could give a sarcastic, or dismissive response, Emily snapped, "Yes!"

Bird Person rolled his eyes as though he thought Emily was being childish. I wondered if she was, or if she actually had a jetpack concealed somewhere on her person. Both seemed equally likely.

"We just want to talk!" I insisted. "Why can't you hear us out? For all you know, we could have something urgently important to tell you!"

"Do you?" Bird Person asked, with an irritated frown.

"Well... no..."

"Then goodbye."

Bird Person dropped from the rock, spread his wings, and soared back up to its peak. Emily and I shared a determined look, and kept climbing.

"What _is_ our plan here?" I asked Emily. "Are you any good at conflict resolution?"

Emily almost laughed. "You have _met_ my aunts, right?"

"Good point, but this guy isn't being forced to live with us..." I pointed out.

"He will when we reach his nest, and refuse to leave until he talks with us." Emily said.

"I do feel kinda bad for bothering him."

"Well, if it turns out he really is lonely, and is just being defensive, then we'll be doing him a massive favour if we get through to him." Emily said, hopefully. "But yeah, if he really is happy out here, then this is a dick move so... fingers crossed!"

The air got increasingly cold and thin as we climbed, and I was grateful for my gloves, and the easily gripped handles on Emily's gadgets. While I appreciated the beauty of the forest from above, I grew gradually more reluctant to look down at it, the higher we went. Eventually, the two of us reached the peak of the boulder, and I collapsed onto its flat surface, with a loud sigh of relief. While the climb hadn't been that strenuous, I was glad to be free of the anxiety, of knowing that if I relaxed my fingers, I'd die.

Eventually looking up, I saw Bird Person's nest. It was pretty much exactly what I had expected. As well as the attributes of an actual bird's nest, including bundles of twigs, forming chair-like bedding, and numerous discarded feathers, it also looked like a human campsite. There was a large-expensive looking tent in the middle of the rock, secured down with cables, a small campfire, and even a couple of solar panels and a satellite dish. Bird person had been sitting cross-legged, in front of his tent, looking at a tablet, but looked up at us, in annoyance.

"Seriously? Okay, what now? You win me over with the magic of friendship?"

"Did you just make a My Little Pony reference?" I asked, incredulously.

"What do you want!?" Bird Person emphasised, angrily.

"We just wanna talk!" I repeated. "We've been travelling around, looking for all the other hybrids out there and... yeah! We would like to be friends!"

"Aren't you miserable out here?" Emily asked, gently. "I mean, you came out of this rock, thousands of years ago. Have you been alone in this forest since then?"

"I've left the forest a few times, and visited human settlements. Humans often don't like me..."

"Do you... have any eagle friends...?" I asked, delicately.

Bird Person stared at me in annoyance, and didn't reply.

"Okay, but we're not like humans... or birds!" Emily argued. "We don't care what you look like! We're just a bunch of misfits looking for people who know how we feel!"

Quite suddenly, Bird Person scowled angrily. "Oh? Then tell me, how does it feel to be thrust into existence in a bleak forest on an alien world, with no one to talk to for millennia, because everyone you meet is either a mindless animal, or petrified of the sight of you?" He advanced on Emily, menacingly, forcing her to back away, perilously close to the edge of the rock. I quickly ran over to her side and put a cautionary hand on BP's shoulder. "I am not a Gem-human hybrid, you got that? I'm a deformed, mutated Howlite, and there is _no one_ like me!"

The three of us stared each other down for a few, very tense moments, Before Bird Person scowled and stormed back to the middle of his nest.

"Look, even if you're not thrilled about being friends, wouldn't you like to have something to do? Aren't you bored stiff out here?" I asked.

Half-way through my sentence, I thought I could hear something, over the murmuring of the high-altitude winds, a whirring, buzzing sound, like a bees' nest, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was, or where it was coming from. Bird Person had none of my uncertainty. He looked into the distance behind me and Emily and scowled, his pupils narrowed into slits.

Emily and I spun around. Barely visible on the horizon, were three sinister-looking military helicopters, closing in fast. Bird Person walked past us, to the edge of the rock, and cracked his knuckles dramatically. "Not really..." He answered my question. "I keep myself busy."


	16. First Blood

"What's going on? Who's this?" I asked, with more than a hint of alarm, as the helicopters raced towards us.

"Gem Hunters..." Bird Person replied, his eyes fixed on the approaching crafts, while he stretched his shoulders and arms, as though preparing for a run.

Emily and I shared a look.

"The ones Olivia warned us about..." I realised.

"She said they weren't organised!"

"What do you know about them?" I asked BP.

"They've sent small drones into the forest before, bearing an insignia shared by these vehicles. I destroyed them as soon as I could. This is the first time they've come in person."

"So, wait, how do you know..." I began.

"Okay, how about this?" Bird Person testily interrupted. "If we're all still alive in a few minutes, I'll tell you all about them. In the meantime, start climbing back down."

With another huge flap, and thunderous updraft, BP shot into the air, and darted towards the helicopters. As he shot past them, the vehicles were rocked back and forth by the gale in his wake. He flew at the choppers and attempted the tear through their doors, but, to my horror, one of the other's turned to face him, and unleashed a salvo of bullets from front-mounted weapons systems.

"We have to help him!" I insisted, while Bird Person resumed darting around the helicopters, avoiding their attacks, but not doing much damage, himself.

"Right." Emily promptly agreed.

My heart leapt to my mouth, as Emily ran along the rock, and swan dived off the edge. I raced over, and just as I arrived, Emily ascended back up to my eye level, squatting steadily on her remaining drone, her Gem glowing bright green.

"I told you I could fly!" She grinned triumphantly. "Hop on!"

"You crazy bitch!" I laughed.

My heart pounding in exhilarating terror, I leapt to Emily's side. The water-condensing antennas had folded down, and had been replaced with sturdy handles, which Emily and I hung to as the drone shot towards the helicopters.

I was about to ask why we hadn't ridden the drone to the campsite, yesterday, when I noticed the strenuous whine of the machinery, barely audible over the wind, and Emily gritting her teeth anxiously.

"Come on baby... Just a little further..." She muttered to the drone.

The helicopters hung almost stationary, in the air, save for spinning around, in their attempt to shoot down Bird Person, so we didn't have to chase them, but Emily had the drone zoom back and forth, as she attempted to draw close, without coming into range of their gunfire. Eventually, we put the choppers between us and Bird Person, and as they attacked him, we approached their unprotected flank.

"WHAT NOW?" I screamed, over the roar of the propellers. "THEY'RE NOT JUST GONNA LET US IN!"

"I DISAGREE!" Emily shouted back.

Emily looked at the nearest helicopter, and with another gleam from her Gem, its door slid open. Inside, were three people in full body armour, including helmets and bullet-proof vests. Behind them, several assault rifles were mounted to the wall. After the passengers stared at us in alarm, through the open door, they turned around to grab them.

With no intention of getting shot, I braced my hands on the edge of the drone and leapt through the air towards the helicopter, trying my hardest not to think about the void between me and the distant forest, beneath. I flew inside, ramming, shoulder-first into a potential assailant, slamming them into the gun rack and then, while they were disorientated, pulled them between me and the other two, who promptly unleashed a hail of bullets. I very much hoped that my human shield's vest was keeping them safe.

As soon as the gunfire stopped, I pushed my bodyguard forwards slightly, before delivering a kick at full strength to the small of their back, sending the three brutes slamming into each other like violent dominoes, and into the door of the cockpit. As the passengers fell into a barely conscious heap, Emily hopped off her drone, into the helicopter, the door sliding shut behind her.

"Okay, can you shut these things down?" I asked her, somewhat breathlessly.

"No..." She sighed. "They're accessible, but they're very complicated and I'm not familiar with them. Best I could do is one function at a time."

"Then start with the door to the cockpit." I instructed. "And crouch down."

Obligingly, Emily ducked to the helicopters floor, and, with a gleam of her Gem, commanded the door to slide open. As I predicted (without the use of my powers) the pilot was armed, and immediately emptied the clip of a pistol over his shoulder, after the door opened.

I had never dodged bullets before, but theoretically, it seemed like a job for someone with my power of foresight, at least bullets from a non-automatic weapon. Sure enough, I swayed left and right, effortlessly evading the shots, as they tore past me. After twelve shots, I lunged forwards, and kicked the gun out of the pilot's hand, and knocked him out with a second kick to the head.

"Ok Emily, tell me you can help me out here..." I pleaded, as I pulled the pilot from his seat, and took his place. "Because I have literally never even seen a helicopter like this before."

I grabbed the joystick and held it steady, after the vehicle began to drift, in the absence of a pilot.

Emily stood still for a moment, her Gem shining. "Okay, I think I've got the guns, just hold it steady."

While Bird Person continued to engage the other two helicopters without doing much damage, our one open fired. The guns focused on the other two vehicle's tails. Occupied as they were, our enemies didn't notice us until it was too late. Our weapons blasted the tail rotors clean off the other two choppers, and they began spiraling towards the ground, at a hazardous, but non-lethal speed.

With a flap of his wings, Bird Person glided over to us and came to a rest on our windscreen. He sunk the claws on his hand into a glass panel and tore it away, effortlessly.

"HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT LANDING!?" He roared, over the sound of the propellers.

"NOT GOOD!" I shouted back, shaking my head.

Bird Person frowned, looking frustrated, but not surprised. He reached over the console and flipped a handful of switches, then waved his hand, motioning me to step away from the controls. I did, and was startled to see that Bird Person had deactivated the helicopter's engine. With an increasingly quiet whine, the propeller slowed to a stop, and my stomach jumped upwards as we began to fall.

Out the windscreen, I saw Bird Person shooting past, over and over as he circled the vehicle. Our descent slowed to a safe speed, as a small tornado whipped up around us. As we reached the ground, a plume of dust consumed us, and when it faded, we had safely landed.

Emily and I raced out of the helicopter. We had landed in the forest, tall trees were spaced thinly around us, and I could see the other two choppers nearby, having landed somewhat recklessly, one of them on its side. The first thing I did, though, was look around for Olivia and Peridot, but they were nowhere to be found. We _had_ landed a fair distance from the campsite.

"BP, you were amazing!" Emily cheered, as Bird Person landed gently next to us.

"Yeah, well... you weren't entirely useless yourself..." He admitted.

I playfully punched Bird Person's shoulder. "Look at you, not being totally mean!"

We didn't have much time to bond, before the occupants of the other two helicopters apparently got their bearings, and managed to open their doors. Ten soldiers, kitted out in armour and helmets, deployed from their crashed vehicles, and marched over to us, forming a semicircle, training their assault rifles in our direction. Emily quickly drew her duel laser pistols from the pockets of her jeans, but we were vastly outgunned.

At their front of the group, stood a man who took it upon himself to be a representative, by not wearing a helmet. He was around forty, with a buzz cut, a course beard, that made me feel sorry for anyone who kissed him, and an expression like he didn't approve of smiling, or anyone who felt otherwise.

"Just so you all know." He addressed us, in a booming voice. "Our mission is to neutralise the bird, only if we can't take him in alive. Same goes for the two of you. So, unless you wanna start another fight, you'd best get on your knees, and put your hands behind your head."

"Yeah, you're gonna have to buy me more than a few drinks, to get me in that position." I quipped.

"Who are you?" Emily demanded. "What do you want?"

"Gem Hunters ma'am." The man replied. "We're a militia, working to preserve the sanctity of human life, and protect it from the alien threat."

"I don't think I've ever heard someone use the word 'sanctity' who wasn't homophobic." I pointed out. "Probably a dumb question at this point, but are you a hate group?"

"People who think that can only be a bad thing, are people who've never met a Gem..." He replied.

"So, you hate Gems." I realised. "Why do you want to take us in alive?"

"Our researchers want the bird, to learn more about how Gems interact with organic matter. We've seen people like you two before though. We're very confident that, in the near future, we'll be able to safely extract Gems from human bodies, so they can go on to live normal lives."

I cringed. Even if that were possible, who would want such a thing? To lose all of your Gem powers, and half of what you are? Then it occurred to me that, if Jet and I were separated, I'd be able to meet her... I quickly stopped myself from following that line of thought, when I remembered that the people who claimed it was possible, were Gem-hating fanatics who would shatter Jet as soon as we were separated.

"Normal lives?" Emily scoffed. "We politely decline."

"We can't let you leave with those Gems." The man sternly informed us.

My eyes darted around the clearing. Emily had her guns, Bird Person was braced to use his wind powers, and I had a couple of boomerangs I could project. None of them would keep us alive for more than a few seconds, against soldiers with rifles. I had considered turning ourselves in, but our friends wouldn't be able to help us if we did. Olivia had already said that she couldn't track these guys for too long, and Perry and Dorothy couldn't use the tracking program, with only two hybrids left.

"Get on the ground, or we will open fire!" The man barked.

I was about to ask Emily what she thought we should do, when I heard the text-notification jingle, coming from her pocket.

"I thought we were cut off." I whispered.

For a moment, Emily looked as confused as I was, then she grinned. "Not any more, we're not."

Still smiling, Emily dropped her guns and got down to her knees and put her hands behind her head. Feeling hopeful, I did the same and, with a pleading look from Emily, so did Bird Person. One of the soldiers started walking over with three sets of handcuffs. He was almost within cuffing distance of me, when his armour began to twitch, like it was trying to break free of him, before he flew backwards, narrowly missing his colleagues.

Peridot and Olivia ran into view, through the trees, Peridot held out her hands, having just protected me with her metal powers.

"Get away from our friends, you clods!"

The solders went into a frenzy, like stupid people, trapped in a room with a wasp.

"A Gem!" The leader roared. "Open fire!"

The soldiers immediately rounded on Olivia and Peridot and, to my horror, followed their order. The air rang with the sound of gunfire, but slowly, my dread turned to relief as I saw several dozen bullets, hanging in the air in front of Peridot, like that scene in the Matrix. Peridot trembled and sweat poured down her brow, as she struggled to stop the bullets in their path.

"It's struggling!" The leader pointed out. "Keep shooting!"

Realising he was right, Emily and I quickly grabbed/summoned our weapons and joined in the fight. Emily's lasers shot blasts of green light, but it seemed that neither they, nor my boomerangs, were enough to render the soldiers unconscious, through their armour. Nevertheless, they fell back, taking shelter around their helicopters.

The five of us grouped up too, hiding behind a small rock. Occasionally, Emily took shots at the soldiers, while Peridot shielded her from their gunfire, but it seemed like we were pinned down.

"No offence guys, but is this all the backup we have?" I asked Emily. "Who was that text from?"

"Any second now..." Emily foreshadowed, dramatically.

Emily didn't disappoint. Over the sound of gunfire, I could just about hear a familiar hum of machinery. Peeking around the rock, I saw a third Peridot Labs drone, the size of a small plane, ducking and weaving between the trees. It flew over the soldiers, and came to a rest, protectively over our group. From the angle I was looking at, I could just about make out a holographic screen flicker into life, on the front of the drone, picturing Dorothy's furious face, with the lab behind her.

Her voice came booming through a speaker. "In precisely five seconds, everyone pointing a gun at my niece, DIES!"

The leader took one look at the drone and scowled, furiously. "Take that thing down!" He ordered.

The fresh blizzard of bullets never even reached Dorothy's drone. As they passed through an invisible force field, surrounding the weapon, they simply faded away, like wisps of smoke. Dorothy glared angrily and jabbed a button in front of her. Two tremendous blasts of green light shot from the front of the drone, detonating the ruined helicopters, and obscuring the soldiers with a towering blaze.

Beyond the flames, we could hear the soldiers making a hasty retreat. The leader's voice cried out, "This isn't over! We _will_ protect humanity from the likes of you!"

The five of us stood still, breathing heavily, recovering from the ordeal. The only sounds were the gradually reducing flames, and the sounds of heavy boots, quickly marching away.

Eventually, I spoke up. "We've got a _lot_ of work to do, haven't we?"


	17. Call to Arms

It didn't take much negotiating, to persuade Bird Person to come back to Empire City with us. While he still didn't want to be friends, the arrival of a new, heavily-armed threat to Gems on earth, demanded a certain degree of action, especially since they knew where Bird Person lived.

Olivia, Emily, Peridot and I packed up our camp, squeezed into the large drone's furnished interior, and flew back to the Warp Pad, with Bird Person in tow, where we disembarked, and the drone flew into the distance, to the remote storage unit, where it was kept. Back in Empire City, our strange and diverse group got more than a few stares, but happily, we made it back to the lab without incident.

"Emily, I'm so glad you're okay!" Perry cried, as we were coming through the door.

As she had when we first met, she immediately sprinted over and threw her arms around Emily and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Oh my Stars! When the signal got cut off we feared the worst, then when the drone finally arrived, you were surrounded by all those aweful brutes with guns! I can't believe we put you in danger like that! You should always have that drone nearby! Or we should develop light-shielding combat armour! Or a copper expanding signal which prevents gunfire! We have a lot of work to do!"

"Perry...?" Emily asked, gently, as Perry held the bald side of Emily's head to her chest. "Are you gonna stop hugging me at some point?"

Perry pursed her lips and shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks.

To my surprise, at that moment, Mandy came in through one of the lab's doors, and she ran over for a hug, too.

"JJ, you're alright!" She cried.

"Mandy!" I reacted in surprise, while I hugged her back. "What are you doing here?"

"I took your advice, and came to talk to the Peridots this morning. I was about to say hi over the phone, when you got cut off!" She looked over my shoulder at Bird Person, as he strolled into the lab, like he owned the place. "Who's this...?"

"We should probably get comfortable... A lot happened on the trip." I said.

"You do that." Peridot said. "But I should probably get back home. I suspect the others are finished freaking out over Steven's mom. Also, I should tell everyone about these menaces."

Once Peridot left, the seven of us made our way through the lab, and into Emily, Perry and Dorothy's apartment, and took a seat in their spacious, and modernly-decorated living room. Most of us sat on a large, white sofa, which faced an enormous TV. I also saw that they had all of the latest game consoles. I suspected they were mostly used by Emily and Perry.

While Perry prepared us all tea and snacks, in the kitchen, next door, we recounted what had happened on our camping trip. I told everyone about the uneventful trip through the woods, and how we arrived at the campsite in the dead of night, only learning in the morning, that it was the setting of the Gem ghost story Peridot had told us. Olivia recounted how we had chased Bird Person through the forest and eventually figured out what he was. Then Emily told of the conflict with the Gem Hunters, from which we'd been rescued by Dorothy's drone.

"Gem Hunters..." Dorothy reacted, her voice shaking slightly.

"I mean, given how many people can't handle other humans with different skin tones, it shouldn't be surprising that they exist..." Mandy admitted, sadly.

"Bird Person, you never said how you knew about them." Emily pointed out.

"They sent drones into the forest before." He reminded us. He leaned forwards in the armchair he was sitting in, and picked up a notepad and pencil, on which he sketched a symbol, made up of three jagged triangles, which could fit together, into an oblong. I realised, with some disgust, that it was a broken Gem, and vaguely remembered it being on the helicopters. "This is their insignia. After I broke the drone, I was able to hack into it and scratch the surface of its databanks. Unfortunately, all I was able to learn was their name, and that they're American-based."

"Olivia, what was your experience with the Gem Hunters?" I asked. "Because the way you described them, I really didn't think they had attack helicopters..."

"Well, my mom came up with the Gemstone Carnival idea, to keep me safe, before I was born, but honestly? Up until a few months ago, it was never really needed. We just did it for fun. Then one day, this guy shows up with some sci-fi gadget with a screen on it, asking a lot of questions about where our name comes from, so we did what Sapphire said, and guided him to Tyrone, who kicked his ass. It happened every few weeks, until you showed up."

"Gadget?" Emily asked. "Do you think it was some kind of Gem tracker?"

"Maybe." Olivia uncertainly answered. "I think it had antennas on it."

"Well of course they have tracking technology." Bird Person said, condescendingly. "They found me, miles away from any human settlement."

"But I thought you couldn't track unique hybrids..." I said, a pit forming in my stomach, along with a disturbing theory in my mind. "Not without a baseline, established by three different ones..."

"You don't think they already have hybrid captives, do you?" Mandy asked, fearfully.

"They had no intention of letting us leave..." I realised. "And they talked about removing Gems from hybrids... like it was something they'd tried before..."

An eerie silence fell, and we all shuddered at the sinister notion.

"Well, there isn't a moment to lose!" Dorothy declared, standing up. "Olivia, Bird Person, you two help me with research, we'll make another effort to hack into their databases, and scout some potential locations. Perry, Emily, you two start work on some anti-human defense technologies."

It was obvious that the seriousness of the situation wasn't lost on anyone, when Perry didn't even bother to argue with Dorothy or challenge her authority.

"I have an idea of how we can help too." I said, referring to me and Mandy. "Even after we take these guys down, we're gonna need a way to keep them off the streets, without killing them."

"Not if we kill them, we won't..." Bird Person sarcastically replied.

"We're not killing anyone." Olivia stated, authoritively.

"She's right." Dorothy said to Bird Person. "However necessary, murder can have a permanent, detrimental effect on a human's mental health."

"What's your idea, JJ?" Perry asked.

"I know someone who can help." I enigmatically replied.

-x-x-x-

Later in the day, Mandy and I arrived at the Empire City Police Station. After some choice words with the officer at the front desk, we were escorted to one of the interrogation rooms, and shortly after, we were joined, by the officer we had come to see. She was tall, and muscular, around forty, with a commanding aura that made criminals tremble, and law-abiding citizens feel safe.

"Jayla Mills..." She greeted me, dramatically. "If it isn't my favourite trouble maker..."

You might remember, earlier in the story, me mentioning a police officer I got into a fight with... That wasn't her... I got up, ran around the table, and pulled the officer into a hug. "Hey Tina!"

Tina hugged me back, and ruffled my hair. "Hey Jet Junior! It's been way too long!"

Tina was Jet's partner, back when she was a police officer. On more than one occasion, Jet had taken a bullet for Tina, and Tina had watched over her while she reformed. The two of them, and my human mum were best friends, and Tina and mum had often got together, after I was born, to talk about Jet, and the feelings they'd been dealing with, since she left. When I lived with mum, we had Tina round for dinner every week, but at this point, I hadn't seen her for a month or so.

"So, what can I do for ya, kiddo?" Tina asked.

Sitting down at the interrogation table, I told Tina about my camping trip, and the new enemy with which we'd been presented.

"Gem Hunters...?" She repeated, at the conclusion of our story.

"We're already prepared to take the fight to them, but... we don't really know what to do with them once we beat them. I mean, we can't kill them, and if we just beat them up, they won't stop."

Tina stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Yes, I see the problem... While I can't legally arrest anyone for trying to shatter space rocks, if I found out there was a heavily-armed militia, conspiring to kidnap or murder American citizens, then I could certainly take action, and if Empire City's best lawyer could donate some of her time, I'm sure we can get all of these bad guys behind bars for a very, very long time."

"That's great!" I said. "We still don't know what these guys are capable of, though, so we'll take the lead. We can call you when we've neutralised any of their bases."

Tina frowned, disapprovingly. "Jayla, you know Jet would be incredibly proud of how you're stepping up like this, but these guys sound serious, and you're just a kid..."

"I'm twenty-five!" I snapped, indignantly, but with a smile on my face.

"I refuse to accept that." Tina joked. "I swear I went to your twelfth birthday party, just yesterday..." Her smile slowly faded. "Seriously though... I don't know much about Gems who weren't your mom, or these Gem Hunting fanatics, but you have to promise me you know what you're doing... Then... maybe I could follow your lead."

"Thanks Tina, I promise." I said, gratefully.

"Have you told your mom about this?" Tina's expression flipped back to stern.

I cringed dismissively. "I mean... she probably won't need to..."

"Call her... now..." Tina ordered, before standing up. "Come on Mandy, we'll wait outside."

Mandy squeezed my shoulder encouragingly. "Good luck..."

I sighed loudly, and slouched in my chair. I had really hoped I could just deal with this whole Gem Hunter crisis, and tell my mum about it afterwards. In hindsight, that was something of a pipe dream, especially after bringing Tina into the mix. I spent a few minutes preparing myself. There was no way I'd tell mum the whole truth. I'd leave out the attack helicopters and assault rifles if I could.

Eventually, I sighed again, and made the call.

"Jayla!" My mum greeted me, after a few rings. "I didn't know you were back. How was your camping trip? Did you make friends with the new hybrid?"

"Yeah... Turns out he wasn't human. He's a Gem-bird hybrid!" I answered her question, not ready to bring up the hunters, yet.

Mum laughed. "What? So, he's just like a normal bird, but with Gem powers?"

"No, he's not the same kind of hybrid, as the rest of us. He's actually more like a Gem. He's kinda grouchy, but he's alright."

There was a pause, in which my mind raced as I tried to think of how to bring up the reason I'd called.

"So..." My mum eventually said, in a serious, but gentle voice. "What's wrong?"

"Wr... wrong?" I asked, surprised.

"Jayla, you're a millennial, you only call on the phone when something huge is happening." Mum pointed out.

I sighed for the third time, since committing to making the call. "There were these... bad people, in the forest. They called themselves 'Gem Hunters'. We don't know how many of them there are, or how serious they are, but we're looking into it, and eventually, we're going after them... I'm talking to Tina now, about getting them arrested."

"What do you mean, 'going after them'?" Mum demanded. "Jayla, you're not putting yourself in danger, are you?"

"No!" I quickly (and I hoped, convincingly) replied. "You remember me telling you about Emily, and her aunts? They're coming up with some super sci-fi defensive gadgets. It's gonna be easy!"

"Just give those gadgets to the police!" Mum reasoned. "Jayla, you don't have to be the one to do this!"

"Of course I do..." I reluctantly argued. "This is Gem stuff. The police can't use unauthorised equipment, and they can't raid buildings without probable cause or warrants!"

"Jayla... You're an adult, and I can't tell you what to do anymore... But this really worries me."

My heart ached, with guilt. "I know... but this is something I have to do... No human can do it, and I can't leave it to the other hybrids."

Mum laughed weakly. "You sound just like your mum..." She quickly tried to sound more enthusiastic. "Right! If you're definitely doing this, you'll need my help making sure these people stay locked up!"

"I know." I smiled. "I'll keep you posted on all our missions."

"Please do." Mum pleaded.

Eventually, mum and I bid each other farewell, and I joined Mandy and Tina in the hall.

"Okay, she's in... Kind of..." I told Tina. "How about we go back to the lab, and find out where we get started?"


	18. Rolling Out

We all spent a tireless day, working in the lab, developing technologies, researching and training. It felt like the lab was a military base, and we were preparing for war, which, in a sense, was true. By the time night came, the Peridots were very confident we'd be ready to raid a Gem Hunter base by the following morning.

While Perry, Dorothy and Bird Person worked into the night, us Hybrids crashed in the apartment, at Perry's insistence, so we'd be well-rested for our mission. I lost a game of rock, paper, scissors with Olivia, which resulted in me sleeping on the couch, while she took the guest room, and Mandy slept with Emily, in her bedroom.

Bright and early, the following morning, we all gathered in front of the big monitor, in the lab, ready for Dorothy to report on what they had learnt.

"Now, we had a very fruitful night, hacking into the Gem Hunter's databases. As Howlite said, they're currently limited to this continent. I tried to narrow their location down further, but this is what I ended up with."

Dorothy tapped on a keyboard, and the screen displayed a map of America, with around two hundred red dots on it.

"They're using signal relays to hide their locations." She explained. "Any number of these could be Gem Hunter bases, but the vast majority of them are decoys. Even with Olivia's power, it could take an excessive amount of time, to locate a genuine lead. But... look at what happens when we do this..."

Dorothy tapped some more, and a few dozen green dots joined the red ones. The pattern looked vaguely familiar.

"Are those..." I began, uncertainly.

"The location of Gem hybrids!" Dorothy proudly confirmed. "If you cross-reference the potential bases, with hybrid locations, there are only three results! Olivia, if you would be so kind..."

Dorothy zoomed in on a city, slightly smaller than Empire City, to the west, and Olivia focused on it for a moment, before illuminating her Gem and eyes.

"I think I'm in the right building..." She said. "It's a skyscraper, so this might take a while..."

"Make sure to check underground." Perry suggested. "It could be a Resident Evil, Umbrella base situation."

"If they were held that deep underground for even a few hours, they wouldn't show up on the pheromone sensors, Perry." Dorothy said.

"They could, if the base has an efficient ventilation system, and the scanner's sensitivity is high enough!" Perry argued.

"Well at any rate, it would be ridiculous and impractical to..."

"Guys..." Emily interrupted, gently but sternly. "Not now..."

"I think I've got something." Olivia said, a moment later. "This whole floor is one giant office, there's a bunch of computers and... Oh! There's the insignia on the wall!"

"Any sign of the hybrid?" Mandy asked.

"Let's see..." Olivia said, thoughtfully. "Bathrooms... locker rooms... yeesh, a LOT of weapons... Yes! There's someone in normal clothes, locked in a room with a bed and a toilet. She looks mad... I don't think she's been in there very long."

"Well then, it looks like we have a rescue mission to embark on!" Dorothy said, happily.

"Wait..." I said, a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Can we check in on the other two, first?"

The subtext in what I said rang clear, throughout the lab. That captive was fine, for now... but what about the other two? The next location on the map, was a warehouse, on the side of a remote stretch of motorway.

"Oh god... It's like a lab out of a horror movie in there..." Olivia said, her voice trembling in anticipation. "There's a kid! They've got him on an operating table, and they're using some kind of tool on his Gem! They're hurting him! We have to help him!"

"Check the third one, first, hurry!" I said, my heart racing.

The third signal was in a small town, not far from Empire City.

"It's... like a prison, except... Wait, there's another kid, but... Oh..." Olivia whimpered. A tear rolled down from one of her glowing eyes.

"Olivia...?" Mandy prompted, gently.

The yellow light in Olivia's eyes and Gem flickered away like they'd lost reception. Her mouth hung open in shock, and she shook her head in silent refusal. "Something... Something was really wrong with him... I couldn't... I couldn't look..."

Olivia trailed off, and I stepped in, before she felt like she had to keep talking. "Okay, it's bad." I concluded. "We have to get all three of those places shut down, and the hybrids rescued right now!"

"But how can we decide which to go to first?" Perry asked. "The second option sounds the most urgent, but it's also the furthest away, both from us and the nearest Warp Pad."

"In case you hadn't noticed, there are three combatants present." Bird Person pointed out, only slightly condescendingly. "There's no reason we should go to these places one at a time."

"Surely you're not suggesting we split up?" Dorothy asked.

Olivia's face was stained with tears, but her expression was one of resolve, and fury. "Guys... these hybrids need to have already been rescued! We don't have time for caution!"

"If it's just more soldiers with guns, then I really think JJ, Bird Person and I can take them, with the new combat armour." Emily said.

"But... you might... It's too..." Perry half-heartedly mumbled, trying to think of an excuse for Emily to stay out of danger.

"Come on! We need to start preparing, right now!" Olivia ordered, desperately.

Obligingly, Emily ran over to one of the lab's counters, where three sets of armour were laid out. Each set featured a solid, metal chest plate, two gauntlets which protected the forearms and the middle of the hands, but left the fingers exposed, and a belt which looked like something Batman would wear.

"Okay", Emily began, after hastily pulling on a set. "We use this armour to wrangle with corrupted Gems, but we've made some modifications, for fighting humans."

She reached into a drawer in front of her and, to my stunned horror, she pulled out a revolver. Before I'd even had time to react to that surprise, Emily pointed the gun at the side of her head and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

After I narrowly avoided passing out, I noticed that, even though I'd seen the flash, and the gunshot still rang in my ear, the only result was a small wisp of smoke, wafting through Emily's hair. Looking around, I saw that Olivia, Mandy and Perry had shared my reaction.

"Please don't do that again!" Mandy shrieked, breathlessly.

"You could have just told them what it does!" Perry hysterically agreed.

"Sorry..." Emily cringed. "But it's the same energy field as the drone you saw yesterday. It manipulates kinetic energy inwards, meaning it takes the force from a bullet or... a corrupted Gem's fist... and makes it destroy itself. It won't work on melee weapons, lasers or human fists."

Next, Emily's braced the armoured palm of her hand, and a circle of light illuminated.

"The palms are fitted with repulsors, which Perry developed after watching Iron Man." Emily explained.

"Really, I got so many great ideas from human science fiction." Perry whispered, to the rest of us.

"And the pièce de résistance..." Emily said, dramatically

She tapped on the belt buckle twice, and three of what looked like spinning tops shot out at different angles, and onto the lab's floor, where they started circling Emily quickly. The shape they drew around her glowed a bright orange, and a familiar chiming sound was made.

"Is that...?" I began, in disbelief.

"Warp Pad 2.0." Emily said proudly.

"Of course, on Homeworld, they have a surface-wide warp network which makes all Warp Pads obsolete, but we do our best." Dorothy admitted.

"Once you have the hybrids, just stand near them on a flat surface, tap your belt twice, and then use it like a normal Warp Pad. The disks are designed to self-destruct afterwards, but you can retract them if you change your mind."

Emily tapped her buckle again, and the disks hopped off the ground, back towards her belt.

"Alright, let's suit up..." I said, trying to sound confident, but my heart was pounding.

Bird Person and I walked over to the armour and, as I pulled my set on, Bird Person held up the chest piece, and weighed it in his hand, frowning in disapproval.

"It's too heavy." He complained. "It'll throw off my balance in flight."

"We can't exactly make it lighter! Not right now!" Dorothy snapped.

"No, but I can spare myself the weight by not wearing it." Bird Person stated, putting the set down. "I'll take the warp belt though."

"Would you seriously rather get shot, than wear a heavy suit of armour?" Emily criticised.

"No, but without the armour, I _won't_ get shot." BP insisted.

"It's fine." Perry interrupted the argument, before it delayed them further. "More armour for me." She started putting Bird Person's armour on.

"Wh... why do you need armour?" Emily asked, worriedly.

Perry frowned, as though carefully picking her words. "Emily, you know I love, trust and respect you. You're easily the fiercest Peridot I've ever known. But there's no way in the bowels of Homeworld, I'm letting you go to a den of gun-wielding fanatics alone."

Emily rolled her eyes, realising she wouldn't be able to talk Perry out of it. "Alright, let's figure out where we're going. Whoever's fastest should go to the furthest base, and so on."

"I can fly faster than any earth vehicle." BP stated in a modest voice.

"Veronica is no earth vehicle." I pointed out, before I remembered that Mandy was the only one in the lab who knew who Veronica was. "My mum has a jet-powered bike. It can get up to at least 400 miles per hour."

"Okay, you go to the warehouse." Emily commanded, once Bird Person didn't claim to be able to fly faster. "BP, you go to the city base. Perry and I will take the last one."

"Everyone take an earpiece." Dorothy instructed, walking over and holding out her hand. "The rest of us will co-ordinate the mission from here. We'll send the drones to back you up."

Mandy ran over. With little warning, she threw her arms around Emily and pulled her into a passionate kiss. "Take care of yourself, okay?" She lovingly instructed. She reached over and pulled me into the hug. "You too!"

"Yes..." Dorothy agreed, clearly made uncomfortable by Mandy's display of affection. "Good luck, everyone."


	19. Bird Person vs The Metropolitan Base

The four of us raced to the building's stairwell, where Emily, Perry and I ran down the stairs, and BP headed up. He sprinted out onto the building's roof where, with a flap of his wings, he shot into the sky. Obviously, I wasn't there for any of this, but I've pieced together what happened from the ever-talkative Bird Person, Olivia's report, and the drone footage.

With a gleam of his Gem shards, Bird Person summoned a hurricane in his wake, and spread his wings, sending him zooming to the West. It was ironic and somehow eerie, how Bird Person's means of flight resembled that of a vulture, who glided effortlessly on updrafts, and in spite of this, he was massively faster than any earth fowl.

He shot over Empire City, and then the surrounding countryside. When he was half way to his destination, Olivia's voice came in through his earpiece.

"Hey Bird Person." She greeted. "One of the drones is about to catch up with you. Don't destroy it, okay?"

Sure enough, moments later, a small metallic drone began soaring above Bird Person's shoulder. Unlike the ones from the camping trip, this one looked more like a large, paper plane, with a propeller on a gyroscopic axel in each wing, like something the Green Goblin would ride on.

"It's fast..." BP noted, sounding surprised and a little offended that it was able to keep up with him.

"Yeah, the Peridots really know what they're doing." Mandy agreed. "It's pretty intuitive, but I _am_ controlling it a little so... you know... sorry if I suck at it."

Before long, BP arrived at the neighboring city. The wind behind him calmed down and, with a readjusting of his wings, Bird Person drifted in between the city's towering buildings at a more manageable, but still brisk speed. The drone flew on ahead.

"Come on, I'll lead you to the building."

Getting more than a few stares from street-level, Bird Person followed the drone through the city, eventually arriving at the skyscraper Olivia had seen earlier.

"I didn't count the floors earlier. Land somewhere, and I'll find out where they are." Olivia suggested.

Instead, Bird person shot into the air with a gust of wind, up above the building, where he flipped over in the air, held his wings to his side, and fell, head first, down the skyscraper's length. His slit-like pupils shot back and forth, as he fell past floor after floor at blinding speed. Before he became a feathery splatter on the street, he spread his wings again, arced upwards, span around in the air, and flew, talons-first, at the windows of a floor, half-way up the building.

Clearly, Bird Person had planned to shatter through the window, but instead, he simply rammed into it, his claws barely leaving a scratch on their surface. The wind that had carried him, kept him pressed against the window, as the workers inside saw him, panicked, and began running back and forth, like an agitated nest of wasps.

"Damn!" BP shouted, angrily.

"Oh man, they really came prepared." Olivia said, worriedly.

Before BP planned his next move, Dorothy's voice came through his earpiece. "Howlite, it's me. Try and take control of the lobby. I believe I can help."

Without a plan of his own, Bird Person dropped from the building, fell for several seconds, pulled up at ground level and flew through the lobby's open, automatic doors, startling several visitors, and blowing several more clean off their feet. As he ground to a halt in the middle of the lobby, dragging his talons into the floor, Bird Person was greeted by several screams of alarm.

Two men in smart, black security uniforms ran in his direction, and brandished pistols.

"G... get down on the ground... Wh... whatever you are!" One demanded, fearfully.

With a gleam of his Bird Person's shards, the guards were blown across the lobby, where they slammed into the building's glass front, one shattered the window, and fell to the street beyond, where he scrambled to his feet and ran, while the other simply fractured the glass, and fell to the lobby's floor, his gun clattering to the ground in front of him.

"EVERYBODY OUT!" BP ordered, menacingly.

Nobody waited to be told twice. With a panicked chattering, the few dozen people who had been occupying the lobby ran for the doors or the newly emptied window pane. The remaining guard, however, began to crawl over to his gun, he had barely touched it, though, when Olivia's drone flew inside, and shot a beam of red light at his hand, leaving a painful-looking burn.

Bird Person rounded on the guard in response to his gasp of pain. The guard looked back, in terror. Bird Person gave the guard a few seconds of agonising suspense, before stretching out his wings, taking up half of the lobby, and screeching an unhuman screech, like the monstrous bird of prey he was. The guard screamed and half-ran, half-crawled away, as fast as he could.

Olivia laughed through the earpiece. "You're just a big drama fan, at heart, aren't you?"

"Theatricality has it's uses." BP admitted. "Although for the record, I don't have a heart..."

The drone flew across the lobby, and behind the freshly vacated reception desk where it drifted down to the PC, on the floor, and a USB cable reached out from the drone like a snake, and plugged itself in.

"Taking control of the building now." Dorothy said. "The Gem Hunters own the fourteenth floor. The rest of the offices are owned by organisations who, as far as I can tell, have no connection with them, so be careful, attacking people indiscriminately." Dorothy spent a few seconds tapping on keys and muttering to herself. "Yeah, they're going into lockdown, we'll see about that." She chuckled to herself. "Alright, I've forced all their doors open. You can head on up, but obviously, they still have guns... so... watch out."

Bird Person ran across the lobby, and was about to open a door to a stairwell.

"Wait!" Olivia cried, urgently. "They've sent a bunch of guys with guns into the stairwell, they're waiting for you!"

"I see..." Bird Person reacted, then gave an evil smirk. "Let's see how that works out for them..."

Bird Person opened the door a crack and, a moment later, air began shooting out, as though from a punctured balloon. A minute later, the door lurched, being pushed from the other side, but Bird Person held it in its position.

"Let us... out!" Someone croaked, breathlessly, from the other side.

Bird Person didn't respond, and continued to hold the door, as air rushed out of the stairwell. Moments later, several rifle shots sounded, but the door didn't yield.

"Bird Person, you're not going to kill them, right?" Olivia asked, warningly.

Bird Person still didn't respond, and continued to hold the door. The banging and pleading from the other side grew quieter and less frequent.

"Bird Person I'm warning you!" Olivia shouted. The barrel of the laser, beneath the drone, glowed red, threateningly. "We have a plan to get them arrested, open that door, right now, or I'll..."

Before she could finish her threat, Bird Person waved his fingers at the drone, and the air was instantly sucked from beneath it, sending it falling helplessly to the floor. Olivia continued to plead with Bird Person, and just when she was prepared to give in, he stepped back and let the door open.

Six men, with combat armour and machine guns, clambered through the door, and collapsed in a heap, in the lobby, desperately sucking in air. Before they'd even looked up at BP, a gust of wind lifted them off the floor and slammed them violently into the ceiling, knocking them out cold.

"It's not my first time choking people." Bird Person said, coyly. "Trust me."

When I heard that, later, I couldn't help but wonder if he meant it in a murderous way or a kinky way. To this day, I'm uncertain.

The drone hopped back into the air, and Bird Person held the door open for it, before they flew up the centre of the spiral stairwell. Eventually reaching a door, with a simple nameplate, which read "Myre's & Sons Geology."

"Olivia, how's it looking in there?" Bird Person asked, as he waited outside the door.

"The second line of defense is standing by..." Olivia warned, worriedly.

Bird Person looked around, and soon noticed the grill of a large ventilation shaft, not far from the entrance. "How flexible is that drone?" He asked, nodding his head to what he saw.

"I like the cut of your shards, Bird Person!" Olivia jokingly complimented.

The drone flew upwards, and freed the grate with four short laser blasts, then, its wings folded inwards, and it slipped inside. Olivia had the drone dart left and right, banging against the side of the vent, simulating the sounds of a large, mutant Gem crawling through it.

"It's working! They're freaking out!" Olivia giggled. "Okay, there's still a few of them there, but they're not watching the door! Go! Go! Go!"

The door flew open, with a gust of wind, which sent seven guards hurtling down the corridor and into the bulletproof glass in the central office. Several more guards emerged to take their place, but bird person reacted like a blur. He flew at the nearest guard and delivered a bone-breaking kick to his shin. Before the guard collapsed in pain, BP wrapped an arm around his neck and held him up as a shield. Pulling a pistol from the guard's belt, he fired seven shots, each one hitting knees, feet and shoulders, flooring yet more guards, without killing them.

Bird person rounded a corner into the floor's spacious office, before Olivia could warn him, and came face-to-face with a firing squad, consisting of a dozen more soldiers. They open-fired almost instantly, but Bird Person was even faster. With a clench of his fists, a desk flew towards him and he dropped behind it for cover. The guards were good, and they had studied his fight so far. They'd figured out he could only create narrow, localised wind tunnels, and had spread themselves around the office.

Bird Person was almost worried, when a grate fell into the middle of the office, and Mandy's drone flew out of the vent, hovering defensively between the soldiers and BP. There was barely time to say 'take that thing down' before a dozen arcs of lightning shot from the drone at each soldier, causing them to cry out in pain for several seconds, before slumping to the floor.

"Oh my god, that was awesome..." Mandy cried, exhilarated. "The drone's only got enough charge for one of those, so I hope that was a good time."

"How are we doing, Mandy?" BP asked, commandingly, notably ignoring an opportunity to pay Mandy a compliment.

"Let's see, there's... OH GOD BEHIND YOU!" Mandy cried.

Bird Person span around, to see a guard, creeping down a corridor to the office, his gun pointing squarely at BP's head. For a brief second, Bird Person thought the fight was lost, but just before the guard pulled the trigger, someone charged out of a door he was passing, fist first, sending him slamming into the corridor's wall with such force that the plaster cracked.

Bird Person's saviour was obviously the captive hybrid. For one thing, she was wearing torn jeans and a red, checkered shirt, and secondly, BP and Olivia were acutely aware that everyone working for the Gem Hunters so far, had been men. She was tall and voluptuous, with a wide build, and equally thick hair, which was dyed a light pink. Her lower lip bore a silver ring, and each ear featured three. The strongest hint that she was a hybrid though, was the pink glow penetrating her shirt's left shoulder, and the holographic, spiked, pink knuckle duster with which she'd just saved Bird Person.

She looked Bird Person up and down, and smirked. "Aren't you a little feathery to be a Stormtrooper?"

Bird Person sneered in disapproval of the reference.

"Say it..." Olivia goaded, through the earpiece, playfully.

"I'm here to rescue you..." Bird Person sighed.

"Appreciate it." The hybrid grinned, walking briskly over and shaking BP's hand. "The name's Sabina."

"Howlite, but people call me Bird Person, for some reason."

"Yeah, that's a real mystery... So, are we leaving, or not?"

"Stand close to me." Bird Person instructed.

He tapped his belt buckle twice and the three spinning tops hopped to the floor, but before they moved fast enough to generate the Warp Pad, the door to the stairwell burst open, and a plume of flames tore through the office, towards the pair of hybrids.

Just in time, Bird Person redirected the fire with a gust of wind, but by the time the glare subsided, the new aggressor had sprinted across the office, and charged through the remaining embers, grabbing Bird Person's neck and pinning him against the window. The man's strength was beyond human, and Bird Person struggled to pry himself free. Before he did, Sabina stepped in with a jab to the man's side, sending him sliding across the office floor, but remaining on his feet.

Bird person and Olivia quickly recognised the man. He had led the platoon that attacked them in the forest. Since then, he had donned a suit of Kevlar armour, which featured a red Gem shard on each of his joints, and one in the palm of each hand. They were all connected by red, vein-like tubes, glowing ominously.

"What... is that!?" Bird Person snarled in disgust, looking at the suit.

"You like it?" The man replied, with a malicious grin. "Turns out these Gems are actually useful once they've been broken, although I doubt we'll get much out of you..."

"What is your problem!?" Sabina snapped, angrily.

"My problem is that our planet is under attack from hostile aliens, and nobody seems to care! I know you didn't ask to be born with that _thing_ attached to your shoulder, but I promise you that, in time, we _will_ be able to remove it, safely."

Sabina scowled furiously, and a pair of pink knuckle dusters appeared on her fists. "Try it, freak!"

The man's gloved hand burst into flames, and he lunged at Bird Person with unhuman speed. With no time use his powers, BP simply grabbed the fist in his hand, and winced as the flames burnt him. With his other hand, BP slashed through the glove, severing the line which connected the hand to the rest of the suit. The flames went out, and the force the man exerted plummeted. Bird Person dragged the arm down and drove his own knee upwards, the two met with a sickening snap, and a howl of pain from the Gem Hunter.

With his other hand, the Hunter managed to force Bird Person to withdraw with a fresh blast of flames, but then Sabina lunged at him from the side. The hybrid's lack of training showed, though, as the Hunter effortlessly ducked the swing of her fist, and sent her stumbling with a kick to the waist, and then delivered an impressive jump kick, which prevented Bird Person's advance.

The drone flew down to eye level, and unleashed a salvo of laser blasts, which seemingly had no effect on the Hunter's amour, and served only to mildly irritate him.

"Olivia, I know you don't want to kill anyone, but maybe crank up the power a smidge?" Bird Person suggested.

"Here, let me!" Sabina snarled.

Again, she charged at the hunter, and again, he dodged, but this time, Sabina's spiked knuckle duster collided with the office's armoured window which, with an ear-splitting crash, shattered across the length of the floor, like a ripple on a pond. Bird Person froze in his tracks, astonished by Sabina's strength, but he quickly snapped out of it.

"Sabina, hold onto something..." Bird Person said, dramatically. "I just got bored..."

Sabina thrust her knuckle duster into the floor and, with a swing of Bird Person's hand, the Gem Hunter was swept off his feet and blown clean out the window. If he was scared, the Hunter didn't give it away, by screaming, but it turned out, he had nothing to fear, yet. Moments after he'd begun his fall to a gravity-educed demise, the Hunter froze, and was lifted back up to immediately outside the broken window, where he began to spin and rotate in the air, as it whipped around him. Bird Person's Gem shards glowed faintly as he and Sabina stood smugly in the empty window.

"Hey, while we've got you, do you want me to remove any of _your_ body parts?" Sabina grinned. "I mean, I'll do it anyway, but I just wanna know where you stand."

"Where did you find the Gem you made the suit out of?" BP demanded, seriously.

The Hunter spent a few seconds spinning, in resentful silence. "Are you going to drop me, or talk me to death...?"

BP rolled his eyes. "He's a soldier, I don't think we're getting anything out of him..."

"Yeah, I don't really care..." Sabina confessed. "These assholes made me miss a date, by kidnapping me. I should probably get home, and call her."

"Fair enough... Care to do the honours?" Bird Person nodded at the soldier.

Sabina dispersed her knuckle dusters, and cracked her bare knuckles. "God yes."

The wind blew into the office, taking the Gem Hunter with it, who flew, face first, into Sabina's fist, before collapsing to the floor. Bird Person pulled his suit of armour off him, before re-engaging his Warp Pad and, with a gleam of light, he and Sabina were gone.


	20. JJ vs the Gem Hunter Lab

After we left Bird Person at the stairwell, Emily, Perry and I ran down the stairs, to the building's car park. The plan was for Emily and Perry to give me a lift to mum's house, where I'd take Veronica and we'd part ways. At first, I thought we'd be taking the RV, but the two of them led me past it and to their actual vehicle of choice, which made me freeze in my tracks, and stare in astonishment.

It was the kind of sports car which was a feat of engineering, designed to be driven through the country as fast as possible, by people with more money than common sense, or to simply attract girls, to people who were bad at flirting. It lay low on the pavement, with a sleek, aerodynamic shape, and a spoiler on the back, and was painted the same bright green, as Emily, Dorothy and Perry's hair. It finally occurred to me to wonder how Peridot Labs afforded all of their sci-fi gadgets, although I didn't ask.

Perry leapt across the car's hood like a cop in an action movie, and slid into the driver's seat. Emily got in the passenger's side, and I climbed into the back. With a roar of the engine, Perry had the car shoot through the car park, and then navigate the city to my mum's house, as fast as the traffic would allow, where we parted ways.

"This is so exciting..." Mum said, while we stood in the garage, waiting for the door to slowly open. "And... terrifying..." She admitted, with a sigh. "Sweetheart, I hate that you're putting yourself in danger like this... but I am so proud of you."

"Thanks mum..." I said, leaning in for a hug. "But I'm really not in danger. This armour makes my whole body bulletproof, and I have repulsor blasts, and my own Gem powers, _and_ I'll have Dorothy and the others for tech support and drone backup!"

"Alright, just be careful, okay...?" Mum sighed resignedly.

With the door open, I put on my helmet, climbed onto Veronica and revved the engine into life.

"Oh, and Jayla?" Mum said, before I left. "You know Jet would be incredibly proud of you too."

I noticed tears welling in her eyes. I beamed appreciatively, glad to hear that my mum thought so.

"Now go kick some Gem Hunter ass for me, darling!"

After an emotional farewell, I raced from the garage and onto the quiet, suburban roads. I zipped the bike through the neighborhood, before hitting the open motorway out of Empire City. My heart raced in anticipation, both because I was embarking on a solo mission, to a hostile enemy base, and because I was about to push Veronica to her absolute limit, for the first time.

I flipped open a panel on the side of the bike's casing, and threw a series of red switches, before twisting a knob at the top, and closing the panel. Brimming with excitement, I revved Veronica's handlebars and held on for dear life, as the bike rocketed forwards, with a blast of green flames. As excited as I was, I reminded myself that my haste wasn't for fun, it was to help a hybrid who was in immediate danger. But nevertheless, it _was_ incredibly fun.

"Hey JJ." Mandy greeted me, over my earpiece. "You're going a lot faster than the drone. You might wanna hang back and let it catch up."

I thought about it. I'd have a better chance of surviving with the drone, but I wasn't the only one whose life was in danger...

"Ask Olivia how the hybrid's doing..." I requested.

There was a pause. "She says they're still hurting him..." She sighed.

"Well I guess the drone will just have to catch up then."

I drove on in relative silence for a couple of minutes. Before Dorothy's voice came through my earpiece.

"Jayla, I just realised that Emily failed to tell you about your armour's limitations!" She said, somewhat urgently.

"You mean knives and lasers?" I reminded her.

"No, it can also be vulnerable to bullets..." Dorothy explained, ominously. "Look at the back of your left wrist."

I glanced at my wrist, before looking back at the road. On the back of my gauntlet, was a rectangular screen, at the bottom of which, was a thin, horizontal green line.

"The energy cells in your suit will last indefinitely, but they can only charge your shield and repulsors so fast. Getting shot, and firing your weapons, will cause that bar to lower, and if it depletes, you'll be vulnerable until your shield recharges again."

"So, I'm like a video game character whose health regenerates?" I summarised.

"Yes, that's the analogy Perry usually uses..." Dorothy sighed. "The shield's limit will depend on such variables as the caliber of the weapons used, their proximity, and their numbers. The point is, you should still avoid getting shot, wherever you can."

"Sounds like a plan." I agreed.

With occasional directions from Mandy, I soon arrived at a large warehouse, by the road. The surrounding landscape was somewhat sparse, and I could see for miles, in every direction. I wondered if this place had been built specifically for Gem Hunters, or if some corporation had once had use for a remote warehouse, for some reason. I left Veronica at the side of the road, and made my way cautiously towards the building.

"Okay, hang on, JJ." Mandy said. "I'm running a hacking program through your armour now. I'll be able to guide you through the cameras." Her voice hushed as she turned away from the microphone. "Dorothy, how do I do this, again?"

"Can't you just ask Olivia?" I asked, anxiously, not wanting to make Mandy feel useless again, but not wanting the captive child to come to harm either.

"She's helping Bird Person." Mandy explained, while I heard Dorothy muttering to herself, as she helped run the hack. "Okay, there are a few guards, and a couple of people in white coats. They're still doing something to the hybrid's Gem! Hurry!"

I raced forwards and grabbed the door handle. I was about to break the lock, throw it open and charge inside, repulsors blasting, when I was struck with a disturbing vision of a second in the future. There was some kind of high-tech trap, on the other side of the door, which would hold me in place, leaving me helpless. I backed away from the door, and explained what I'd seen, to Mandy.

"Of course... the others have already started their raids... JJ, they must know you're coming! Be careful!" Mandy warned.

I looked around the warehouse wall. In my vision, I'd roughly seen the trap that caught me, but I didn't know how large the device was, or if I could destroy it with my repulsors. I raced around the building, for another means of entrance. There were narrow windows running immediately underneath the warehouse's roof, and although I could jump that high, I didn't know if I could break the windows, never mind crawl through, without getting riddled with bullets, or torn to shreds by broken glass.

My perimeter sweep concluded, with no luck, I crouched down low, and leapt upwards, to the distant warehouse roof. My heart soared, as I saw that the warehouse roof featured several large skylights.

"Mandy, whereabouts is the hybrid?" I asked, quickly.

"Erm... Northeast corner." She replied.

I looked at the sun, still relatively low in the sky, to figure out where East was, and ran to the corresponding corner, before unleashing a barrage of laser fire from my gauntlets, on the remaining windows, hoping I wouldn't harm the hybrid with falling glass. While the glass still rained down I dove in after it, flipped over in the air, and landed firmly on my feet.

Olivia's sinister description of the lab, inside, had barely done it justice. There were several tables, littered with surgical equipment, on the walls, there were X-rays of a hybrid child with a gem on his navel, like Steven (but not Steven), and in one corner, there were several tall, glass cylinders, containing amorphous blobs of flesh, suspended in green liquid, like something out of a monster movie.

Spinning around, I counted ten armed guards, and two people in lab coats, next to a surgical table, on which, the hybrid child was restrained by his wrists. He leaned up, quickly.

"Help me!" He cried out.

I didn't need to be told twice. Just before the air filled with bullets, I kicked over a table, and collapsed with my back to it, unleashing a series of repulsor blasts on the guards behind me, but not before they gave me the full fury of their assault rifles. It felt strange, being shot with such frequency, while wearing the shielding, like being bombarded by tiny air cannons, as the bullets turned to vapour and flew harmlessly at my chest.

There were four guards behind me, and each one was blasted into the warehouse wall by a blast of my gauntlets. I looked at the readout. The energy level had dropped by about a quarter, but it rapidly climbed back to full charge in a few seconds.

I summoned a boomerang in each hand and sent them spinning around the outside of the room, and then, when the remaining guards panicked, and tried to dodge or shoot them out of the air, I kicked my sideways table upside down and resumed fire myself. Starting from the middle, I took them out one by one, and by the time the last two had spun back towards me, guns primed, my boomerangs struck them each in the side of the head, knocking them out cold.

In the corner, the two people in lab coats were huddled behind the table, on which the boy sat upright, with a hopeful smile on his face. The doctors (at least I hope they were licensed to practice medicine) were a man, around forty, with an average build and a short, professional haircut, and the other was a woman, a few years younger, with a smart ponytail.

"What's wrong with you!?" The man asked, hysterically. "Can't you see we're only trying to help people like you!?"

"Jesus, when you watch X-Men, do you root for the government?" I asked, exasperated. "People who want help don't usually have to be tied down, moron!"

If the man had a retort to that, I never heard it, since I lunged at him and knocked him out with a right hook. Running protectively to the other side of the bed, the woman looked at me fearfully, the look I gave back was one of disgust.

"Get out of here." I told her, darkly. "I don't hit girls..."

With a sigh of relief, the woman ran towards the warehouse exit, getting about half way there, before I floored her with a repulsor blast to the back. Looking back, I saw the kid staring at me in surprise.

"What? I didn't hit her." I said, eliciting a giggle.

I feel like I should say that I absolutely don't discriminate when I want to punch someone, I just saw the opportunity for some physical humour, and leapt at it. Looking down at the bed though, it occurred to me that it might not be the time for humour. The kid was around twelve, with sandy blonde hair, and a slim frame. He wore a surgical gown, with a circular hole over his stomach, through which I could see a round, yellow/orange Gem with an oval facet and, I was heart-broken to see, several shallow fractures running across its surface.

"Hey buddy." I said, warmly, as I tore his wrist cuffs off, with great effort. "I'm JJ, I'm a half Gem, like you. My mum was a Jet, see?"

I lowered the neck of my armour, showing him my Gem.

"I'm Tyler..." He nervously replied. "I'm half Citrine."

I got his cuffs off and helped him off the bed. He stumbled slightly, so I held his hand. "Did they do that?" I gently asked, indicating to his Gem.

"Yeah..." He remorsefully replied.

"How do you feel?" I asked, anxiously.

"I feel... cold... and I don't think I can stand straight."

My lip quivered, and I tried not to cry. Hoping he didn't mind, I pulled him into a hug. "I'm really sorry I didn't get here sooner."

"My... my dad said that when a Gem gets cracked, it can't be fixed..." Tyler said, his voice shaking. "Am I gonna die?"

My mum had told me the same thing, but if Citrine was an Era 2 Gem, like Jet, then she might not have known about older Gems, specifically, she might not know about the unique powers of one very old Rose Quartz. I remembered Steven saying that he could heal any injury, and if that power had come from a Gem, then logically, that would include Gem fractures and cracks.

"No." I firmly said. "Come on, I know someone who can help."

I tried to help Tyler walk a few steps, and then, when he seemed to struggle, I picked him up, and made for the exit.

"Mandy, you still there?" I asked, aware that she hadn't said anything for a while.

There was a few moments of quiet, during which I disabled the trap around the entrance, which I'd sensed on my way in.

"Hi, no... I'm sorry, I... I wasn't watching... are you okay?" Mandy eventually asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay, are _you_?" I replied, worriedly, as I took Tyler outside. Mandy sounded very upset.

"Yeah... we're all... JJ, something just happened on Emily's mission..."

My blood ran cold. "Is _she_ okay?"

"Yeah... Well no... She's alive b... sh... there w..." Mandy's voice was slowly replaced by flickering static.

"Mandy? Hello?" I called, urgently, getting no reply.

Mandy was alive... Emily was alive... I forcibly reminded myself, as my heart rate accelerated. Obviously, something was wrong, but for now, I had problems of my own. I sent Mandy a text, asking her what was happening, then sat Tyler down on Veronica's seat.

"Hang on, okay pal?"

I placed my hand next to his, on the handlebar, and tapped my belt. The tops hit the road and began to spin around the bike, forming the Warp Pad, and I focused on Steven's house. With a chime and a flash of light, we vanished.


	21. Before the Storm

After the last two chapters, and some ominous mentions at the end of the last one, you're probably anxious to know what happened to Emily, on her mission, and I will get to that. Not to deliberately build up tension, but after Emily's mission, everything pretty much went to hell... Anyway, I didn't really get involved until I wrapped things up with Tyler, so I'm gonna finish that story first.

After the glow of the Warp Pad faded, Tyler and I found ourselves in Steven's house, or rather... what was left of it. The kitchen half of the house had been crushed by something enormous, metal and light blue, and a hulking, purple Gem, with a red apron and rainbow-coloured dreadlocks was strenuously pushing it out, inch by inch. She rounded on us, in reaction to the sound of the pad.

"Who are you supposed to be?" She asked, in confusion.

I was still looking around in shock, wondering what had happened. "Where's Steven? Is he okay?" I asked, nervously.

At that point, a balding man with a bad sunburn, wearing a tuxedo, came through the door, holding a one-eyed kitten. "Bismuth? What's going on?" He asked. He looked similar enough to Steven for me to safely assume that he was his dad.

"Okay, look, obviously something huge happened here, but I really don't have time for it." I said, quickly. "This is Tyler, his Gem is fractured. Please tell me Steven can fix it."

Steven's dad and the Gem (I assumed she was Bismuth) ran over urgently, to inspect the damage.

"Oh geez..." Steven's dad reacted. "Steven could probably fix that up in a jiff, but... you just missed him."

The man looked heart-broken and afraid, but Bismuth stroked her chin thoughtfully.

"So... Steven's got healing powers, like Rose, huh?" She asked.

"Yeah, why?" The man asked, noticing Bismuth's apparent lack of concern for Tyler's seemingly helpless situation.

"Well we don't need him, we can just go to the source!"

"What source?" I asked.

"Rose's tears!" Bismuth replied. "That's where the healing comes from! We got a whole fountain full of them!" She stepped onto the Warp Pad with us. "You ready?"

"Oh, hang on." I quickly pushed Veronica off the Pad and lifted Tyler off it. "Can you look after that, for me, please?" I asked Steven's dad.

"Sure thing." He enthusiastically replied.

I joined Bismuth on the Warp Pad and a moment later, we went shooting through Warp Space. When the light faded, we were in an idyllic garden. A series of tiled pathways led away from the pad, and immaculate hedges encompassed the site. Dotted around, were statues of various Gems, and shrubs, cut into the shape of Rose Quartz, who I recognised from the painting in Steven's house.

"Come on, the fountain's this way." Bismuth said, leading us through the garden. "So, are you guys new Crystal Gems? I haven't been back long. I'm still catching up."

"Oh... no. I've only met Steven and the others a few times, and Tyler just a few minutes ago. I just came to him because we're both Gem hybrids. Turns out there's a lot of us, but we don't have much of a community, until now."

"Huh..." Bismuth reacted. "So, who did that to ya, meatbag?" She asked Tyler, nodding to his Gem. "And did ya get 'em back as good as they gave?" She grinned.

"Gem Hunters..." Tyler shyly replied. "And... no... I don't know what would have happed if JJ didn't save me..."

"Gem Hunters...?" Bismuth repeated, with caution and curiosity in her voice.

Suddenly, I realised something. "I never asked. What do you want to do once we're done here, Tyler? Did the Gem Hunters take you from your dad?"

"Yeah, we live in Surf City. I don't know dad's phone number."

"Is he on Cheeper?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

I shifted Tyler over, holding him in one arm, and fished my phone out of my pocket, before unlocking it and handing it to him. "Here you go, find him and let him know you're okay, and to meet us at Beach City."

Eventually, we walked through a large, star-shaped archway, and the fountain came into view. It was gorgeous. In its centre, was a twenty-foot statue of Rose, with tears streaming from its eyes and pouring into a basin the size of a swimming pool.

"Well, there ya go, kid. That'll fix ya right up." Bismuth said.

Once he was done, I took my phone back from Tyler, and carried him towards the water, but before we were close enough to make use of it, something rose from its surface. A purple tentacle, covered in suction cups rose higher and higher above our heads, before slamming down on us. I held Tyler close and darted out of the way. The tentacle made to swing in our direction, but with a chime from her Gem, Bismuth's arm elongated, and she grabbed the tentacle at the tip.

"Oh no you don't!" Bismuth snarled.

I quickly ran to the archway we'd entered the area with and gently sat Tyler down. "Wait here, okay pal?"

I ran over, to join Bismuth.

"Tell me you got earth animals like this, nowadays." Bismuth asked, fearfully.

"No, it's a corrupted Gem, right?" I asked.

Bismuth sighed, "I was afraid of that..."

The tentacle broke free of Bismuth's grip and returned to the water. From in front of the statue, the Gem's bulbous head rose. It scowled at us with two angry eyes, between which, was a round, purple Gem. Four tentacles rose defensively into the air around it.

Bismuth groaned reluctantly. "Oh Curly... Come on man... don't make me do this..."

"Curly?" I asked. "What kind of Gem is that?"

"We had a lot of Amethysts in the rebellion." Bismuth explained. "We gave 'em nicknames."

Curly lashed out again, but I was ready. Still wearing my armour, I blasted the offending tentacle away, cutting it in two, the severed half vanishing with a flash of light, before immediately growing back. Bismuth leapt fearlessly at the Gem's head, but she was plucked out of the air, with another tentacle, and violently dunked in the water. A moment later, though, Bismuth rose from the water, furiously dragging Curly's head towards herself, by pulling the tentacle like she was climbing a rope.

Seeing my chance, I squeezed my hands together, scooped a handful of water from the fountain, and quickly but carefully ran over to Tyler.

"Okay, hold still." I warned.

I poured the water onto his Gem, and waited an agonising second, before, to my massive relief, a sparkle of light worked its way along the fractures, leaving a flawless Gem in their wake. Tyler's Gem glowed brightly, before, to my surprise and discomfort, a tiny arc of electricity jumped from it, to my hand.

"Ow!" I cried. "What was that?"

"It's... better!" Tyler gasped, feeling his Gem. "I feel better!" He joyously commented.

"Great!" I sighed in relief. "Now come on, we have to help Bismuth!"

We ran over to the side of the basin, in the middle of which, Bismuth and Curly were still wrestling, amid a frothing mass of water. "JJ, if you can get Bismuth out of the water, I can finish it off!"

I didn't know anything about Citrines, or Tyler's power, but he sounded confident enough for me to trust him. With a quick confirmation, I leapt into the fountain, and furiously swam towards the warring Gems. Between wrestling Curly aside, in my effort to reach Bismuth, and resisting the urge to say 'I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going' I was pretty much at my limit.

"Bismuth!" I cried, when I was within earshot. "Tyler says to get out of the water! He can..."

Before I could finish my sentence, a tentacle wrapped around my ankle, and dragged me to the bottom of the pool. I thrashed and struggled, swinging a boomerang in one hand, and firing my gauntlet with the other, but I was so disorientated, I didn't know which direction was up, much less which one Curly was in.

With a flash of light, which I'd later learn was Bismuth swinging a transformed limb, the tentacle holding me was severed, and I felt two much less cephalopodic arms wrap around me. Bismuth's feet hit the bottom of the basin and she leapt, exploding out of the surface of the water, and flying over the fountain, with me in her arms, feeling like a somewhat disheveled princess.

Beneath us, Tyler grinned with premature victory. He rubbed his hands together rapidly, and jolts of electricity leapt out in all directions. He plunged his hands into the water, and the entire fountain lit up like a Christmas tree, as lightning raced across the surface of the water, and over the corrupted Gem, who screeched in distress, before exploding with a puff of white smoke.

Bismuth landed on the edge of the fountain, and set me down, before reaching out with her shapeshifting powers and plucking Curly's Gem from the water. "She must have remembered that we came here to heal, when we were hurt..." She sighed. "Hang in there, buddy... We'll get you fixed right up once Steven gets back. Until then..."

The Gem lifted out of Bismuth's hand, and a lilac bubble formed around it. Bismuth tapped the top of it, and it vanished.

-x-x-x-

"You are an absolute angel! Thank you so much! Thank you!"

We'd barely got back to Steven's house, when Tyler's dad, a middle-aged man in a suit, came running up the steps. He spent several minutes hugging his son, and tearfully thanking me.

I cringed embarrassedly at the accolades. "It's fine, really, it was the only thing to do!"

"You know Tyler, I've never met a Citrine before." Bismuth grinned. "But with powers like yours, I bet you'd be welcome on the Crystal Gems, any time!"

"Really?" Tyler gasped, excitedly.

"Hey, do we have to fight over him?" I joked, elbowing Bismuth. "Us hybrids stick together, you know!"

"Can I be on both teams?" Tyler asked.

"How about we get settled down again, before you join a Gem militia?" Tyler's dad suggested, with a smirk.

"Well, either way, we should probably stay in touch." Mr Universe suggested. "I mean, if hybrids stick together, then hybrid p _arents_ probably should too, right?"

"I'd like that." Tyler's dad agreed.

After some goodbyes, Steven's dad, escorted Tyler and his dad back into town, leaving Bismuth and me alone. Her cheery demeanour darkened slightly.

"So..." She said. "Tell me about these Gem Hunters..."

"They're a group of fanatical humans who hate Gems. They were trying to cut Tyler's Gem out without killing him, and they're hellbent on destroying all Gems on earth."

"What!?" Bismuth cried. "We put our Gems on the line, protecting humans and the earth!"

"From other Gems..." I reminded her.

"Okay, fair point, but that's no reason to commit genocide!"

"Yeah, no kidding." I agreed.

"Well if there's a fight like that going on, you're crazy if you think I'm staying out of it."

I didn't object for a second. "That's great! You'd be a good fit, actually. We're pretty much just heavily armed nerds at this point."

"Well what are we standing around for? Let's go give those Gem Hunters the Bismuth!"

After we warped to Empire City, I remembered that I was cut off from Mandy and the others. I tried the earpiece again, and checked my phone, but I was unable to make contact. Feeling a flutter of anxiety, I hopped onto Veronica, and raced through the city, with Bismuth sprinting in tow.

In the car park, beneath the lab, I saw that the lights were flickering erratically, and the sliding doors to the building stuttered painfully slowly, until Bismuth forced them open.

"I haven't been in a human settlement for thousands of years, but it really looks like they should have electricity figured out by now..." She pointed out.

"Yeah, something is wrong..." I agreed.

We raced up the stairs to Peridot Lab's floor. As we approached, I saw that the door's electronic lock had been broken, and I could hear hysterical wailing coming from inside. Bismuth and I rushed in. The lab was a sight to behold. The power was out entirely, and the lab was lit by several candles and Bunsen burners. The lab monitor had shattered and most of it had fallen to the floor, and the lab's computers were in similar states of destruction.

The wailing had come from Dorothy, who was sitting in the corner, her face pressed against her knees, which she was hugging. Looking around the room, I saw that everyone was upset and in tears, except Bird Person, whose face was distorted in barely controlled rage, and the stranger who would eventually introduce herself as Sabina, who mostly just looked uncomfortable.

Emily had been leaning over the counter with her back to us when we came in, but when she turned around, I almost jumped. I don't think I'd ever seen her angry before, and I'd never seen _anyone_ look as angry as she did. The half of her face under her eye was streaked with tears, but she was barely crying anymore. Her one eye glared, and her Gem glowed ominously in the dark.

"Jayla, finally..." She spat. "We have a lot of work to do."

"What the hell happened!?" I demanded, looking around the room. Then I did a quick headcount and my heart fell. "Wait... Where's Perry...?"


	22. Life Sentence

One last flashback takes us back to my house, as Emily and Perry dropped me off, before Perry put her foot down, sending the sports car zooming down the street, and out of Empire City. Emily has never really liked talking about this mission, but most of it was recorded by the databanks in her armour, which she allowed us to listen to.

"This is so exciting!" Perry grinned, nervously, as she drove, and Emily tapped on the display of her gauntlet. "I can't believe my little Emily is doing bona fide super heroine work!"

"Come on, Perry..." Emily scoffed, embarrassedly, with a big grin. "I'm just helping out my fellow hybrids, like everyone else, and I'm really not that little anymore..."

Perry chuckled. "It's so curious how emotional bonds with entities that age, can alter your perception of time... It seems like it was so recent, that you were just a gross, squiggly thing in a vat. You've grown so much. I'm so proud of you."

Emily smiled and rested her head on Perry's shoulder, endearingly. "Thanks Perry."

Perry took a deep breath, as though preparing herself. "Now... once again... I love you and trust you, and et cetera and so on..."

Emily shot a suspicious look at her. "But...?" she prompted.

"... but when we get there, please let me take the lead, if there's a firefight, okay?"

Emily gave an exasperated sigh. "Perry..."

"Think about it!" Perry interrupted. "We're both wearing armour, and when mine runs out, I'll be poofed, and you can take over! It just makes sense!"

Emily spent a few seconds trying to think of a counter argument, but had no luck. "Fine..." she accepted.

They drove on in silence for a couple of minutes.

"Hey, when we save the hybrid, we should see if they want to stay for dinner!" Perry suggested, grinning. "I could take another crack at that quesadilla recipe!"

Emily smiled and rolled her eyes. "Perry, for the last time, kindergartening is not a transferrable skill, that helps with cooking..."

"Okay, maybe, but you still _like_ my cooking, right?"

A few seconds of awkward silence passed.

"Let's get takeout!" Emily forcefully changed the subject. "Chinese?"

Perry smirked. "Fine..."

Eventually, the car arrived at an average-sized town on a river, and stopped outside an enormous building, made of depressing, grey stone, with tiny windows which had bars over them. On the side of the building, was one of those plaques that tells you about historic monuments. Apparently, this was Blackthorn Penitentiary. It had been in use from 1920 to 1999, when it was condemned. It was now the property of the city, and was supposedly too dangerous to enter.

"Dorothy, you there?" Perry asked, putting in an earpiece. Emily saw, and did the same.

"Hey you two. You're in the right place. There's a loading bay at the back, which leads to an alley, which I suspect they use to slip in and out discretely. If that's the only entrance they use, the others are probably bricked up."

"Well, it'll take more than bricks, to stop us!" Perry smirked.

"Yeah, but how about we save our strength for the bad guys?" Emily suggested.

The two raced down the dark alleyway, to the back of the prison, where they found a large, electronic door, designed to give access to trucks and lorries. To the side of the door, was a complicated-looking access panel, and above it, was a security camera.

Emily looked up at the camera, and gave an exaggerated wink, to make up for only having one eye. Concealed beneath her eye patch, her Gem glowed, and inside the building, the people in the surveillance room panicked, as the screens were replaced by static, one by one.

Meanwhile, Perry walked over to the access panel, and reached for her right shoulder. Through her sweater and lab coat, her Gem glowed brightly, and from it, she summoned a short, but telescopic rod, with a small, forward-facing X at the end. She pressed the end against the access panel, and it crackled with jolts of electricity, before lighting up green, and the door began to rise.

As she'd promised, Perry stood protectively between Emily and the door, as it rose, revealing a large loading bay, shelves of packaged equipment and, sure enough, a platoon of soldiers. Perry strode confidently through the doors, as a blizzard of bullets tore through the air. As her shield integrity plummeted, she aimed her gauntlet and unleashed a blast of light at the centre of the soldiers, sending them flying in all directions. As Perry walked past them, she flourished her electronic wand, casting small arcs of lightning, flooring the remaining guards, who were clinging to consciousness.

Opposite the door, was a small workstation, featuring a couple of filing cabinets and an open laptop. Perry span it around to face her, and pressed the end of her wand against the keyboard. A small, holographic screen flickered into life above Perry's device, showing a stream of data in the Gem dialect.

While Perry worked, two more soldiers came charging into the loading bay. "Hey, stop right there!" One cried, as they both aimed their guns.

Perry didn't even turn around, as Emily gave both guards the full fury of her repulsors. "Wow, that would have been really impressive and heroic if we weren't both bulletproof." Emily joked.

"It was still impressive, sweetheart." Perry assured Emily, as she joined her at the laptop. "Looks like the prisoner is on the fifth floor."

"There are still twenty-six officers on site." Dorothy warned, as the contents of the drive was sent to the lab. "One of whom seems to be of a senior rank."

"Like a level boss?" Perry smiled.

"Yes Perry..." Dorothy sighed. "Like a level boss..."

"Wait, look here." Emily said, pointing at the screen, and furrowing her brow in concern. "What's that word being repeated? Experiment? Procedure?" She guessed.

"Procedure, yes." Perry proudly confirmed. "But... with an element of uncertainty. Let's see... 'The procedure is scheduled' 'Doctor brought in from off-site for the procedure' 'Procedure... failed'... No word on what the procedure actually is... the files have been removed from the hard drive..."

"I'll do some digging, while you rescue the hybrid." Dorothy offered. "See if I can restore a backup."

Perry and Emily shared a nervous look as they both developed the same, distasteful theory. "Right." They said in unison.

With the cameras still offline, the soldiers were uncoordinated. Perry and Emily ran through the building, dispatching them, one small group at a time, and quickly arrived at the fifth floor. They exited the stairwell and rounded a corner on a long corridor, lined with cells and was guarded from the other end, by a ceiling-mounted machine gun.

Emily and Perry fell back as the weapon fired on sight. It was a long corridor, and they certainly wouldn't be able to run its length before their shields gave out, and their repulsors were unlikely to have much effect on an automated sentry at such a distance.

"Emily! Be careful!" Dorothy cried, after they sheltered from the gunfire.

"Give it up, Gems!" A voice cried from the end of the corridor, whose owner was clearly trying to sound braver than he actually felt. "We've got countermeasures incoming! You'll never leave this building intact!"

"Can you shut it down?" Perry asked Emily, referring to the gun.

Emily's Gem glowed for a second, before she shook her head. "The kill switch must be wired in."

Perry frowned thoughtfully for a moment, before looking down, at a plug socket, built into the wall, at her feet. She pointed the end of her wand at it, and arcs of electricity began darting back and forth. A moment later, the building's lights flickered. At the end of the corridor, the gun whirred exhaustedly, as it struggled to keep pointing upwards.

"Go! Hurry!" Perry instructed, still holding her wand at the outlet.

Emily sprinted down the corridor, and leapt up to the gun, hanging from it and pulling herself up with one hand, and with the other, tearing from it, a small group of cables, which connected it to a desk, surveying the surrounding cell-lined corridors. Huddled behind the desk, was a frightened-looking man in a black uniform, holding a walkie talkie.

"The Gems have taken the prison level. Hurry!" He cried into it.

Emily blasted the device out of the man's hand, and grabbed his collar, pulling him over the desk. "So... countermeasures? Anything we should know about?"

The man gave an extended, exaggerated flinch, as though waiting for Emily to punch him. Emily sighed, grabbed the back of his hair, and drove his face into his desk, knocking him out.

"Come on." Perry said, as she walked past Emily. "Let's get out of here, before we have to find out."

The two of them raced down the corridor, passing several empty cells, before rounding a corner, where a new Gem Hunter greeted them by grabbing hold of Perry's throat. She made no attempt to hold on, as Perry stepped back. The newcomer was a tall, sinister-looking woman, around forty, with an expression that said she meant business, and a scar under her right eye that seemed to agree. On the wrist she hadn't just grabbed Perry with, she wore a bulky, box-like device.

"I like your armour." She sneered. "Stops bullets, but doesn't keep you from touching anything. Had a feeling it wouldn't work on enemy body parts. I wonder where you'd draw the line..."

She pulled a combat knife from her belt and threw it at Perry, like a blur. Perry swung out of the way, dodging it by an inch.

"Good to know..."

"I'm sorry, do you want to talk, or fight?" Emily asked, almost entirely sincerely.

"Oh talk, of course." The woman replied, as though offended. "My name's Captain O'Neil, I'm one of the founding members of the Gem Hunters. You're here to rescue the captive, right?" She stepped to the side of the corridor, and held out her arm invitingly. "Please, be my guest."

Perry and Emily cautiously looked at each other, and then made their way past. "Thank you..." Perry said, slowly.

"What are you two doing? Neutralise her!" Dorothy insisted.

For whatever reason, Emily and Perry decided to hear O'Neil out. I can't say I blame them for trying to resolve the conflict peacefully, but obviously, looking back... it wasn't the right choice...

"Since you've come this far, I assume you know what it is we do, and why?" O'Neil asked, as the three of them made their way down the corridor.

"Yeah, people have been shouting it at us a lot lately." Emily said, sarcastically. "You hunt down, and destroy Gems."

"I assumed you were doing it because you'd all lost family members to corrupted Gems." Perry added. "Makes as much sense as every other genocide in human history..."

"Corrupted... Is that what they are?" O'Neil said, thoughtfully. "I've been assuming they were simply beasts from your home planet... but it hardly matters. The point is, unlike the rest of our soldiers, I didn't lose my family to a Gem beast, I lost them to a healthy Gem, like you..."

"I'm sorry to hear that..." Perry said, sincerely, but still keeping one eye on the Gem Hunter.

"We saw her crash land. She called herself an anarchist, and a rebel, then said she was going to conquer the planet in her own name. I didn't take her that seriously... until she killed my husband and children for _nothing_..."

"That's terrible..." Perry agreed.

Emily wasn't nearly as sympathetic. "So, you think all Gems are the same, even though you've only met one?"

"Of course not, if that alien monster was a carbon copy of the rest of her kind, she wouldn't have been much of an anarchist..." O'Neil pointed out. "I just think it isn't worth the risk. I think I'm justified in protecting my planet and my species from your kind..."

"So why the pleasantries? You want to kill us, right?" Emily asked, suspiciously eyeing the device strapped to her wrist.

"Of course." O'Neil replied, as though she'd been asked if she'd like a cucumber sandwich. "I'm just curious to know what you think of this."

After the group rounded a final corner, they found a short corridor, leading in a dead end, again, lined with cells. O'Neil gestured for Emily and Perry to go on, and they cautiously obliged. In the last cell in the corridor, a small boy knelt on the floor, with his back to the bars. He seemed around ten years old, with long, black hair hanging around his shoulders. What they could see of his skin, was unnervingly pale.

"Hey! Hey kid!" Emily called, grabbing hold of the bars. "We're gonna rescue you, okay? You're gonna be fine!"

Emily's heartrate rose anxiously, and the boy very slowly climbed to his feet, then turned. He looked like a ghost. His skin was white, his eyes were shadowed and bloodshot, and he stood eerily still, as he stared at his rescuers. Like Tyler, he wore a hospital gown with a hole in it, this one, over his heart, but it didn't reveal a fractured Gem... it revealed a circular, Gem-sized scar.

"R... rescue...?" The boy whispered, as though he had barely heard Emily.

After a few moments of horrified staring, Perry furiously grabbed hold of the bars of the cell and pulled the entire set free, tearing much of the floor and ceiling away too, before setting it aside, leaving room for the child to escape. "What did you DO!?" She roared at O'Neil.

O'Neil stared back, in equal disgust. "Oh, this upsets you? I suppose you're going to tell me you don't recognise the device on my wrist? This is what destroyed the Gem, after all."

Emily looked at it, barely managing not to charge at O'Neil and beat her to a pulp with her bare fists. "No? Why would I? It's obviously human-made."

Although the device's purpose was unclear, Perry had plainly seen the screws it was held together with, and the coloured cables, connecting the inner workings to some kind of four-finger trigger.

"Oh yes, but based on schematics our scouts dug out of an abandoned Gem base, in an active volcano. Translating the designs were rather easier than translating its name, but we believe it's called a Breaking Point. Designed by Gems... for Gems... to deliver the perfect amount of pressure, in a singular spot."

"To do what...?" Emily asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

As it turned out, O'Neil chose to demonstrate. From her belt, she pulled another knife, and threw. Of course, she already knew that Perry was fast enough to evade a knife, which was why the attack wasn't aimed at her, instead, the knife flew at Emily. Perry threw herself in the knife's path, leaving it to plunge into her forehead, and, after gasping and doubling over slightly, her form exploded with a cloud of white smoke.

Emily was blinded, but she heard rapid footsteps racing towards them, and just as she was about to fire blindly through the smoke, a series of handgun rounds fired directly at her face. Although rendered harmless by her shield, the whips of vapourised bullets made Emily recoil enough for O'Neil to pounce through the smoke like a lion, preparing to strike the green Gem on the floor, with the Breaking Point.

"NOOOOO!" Emily shrieked.

She aimed her gauntlet and fired, the blast hitting O'Neil at the second she squeezed her weapon's trigger, and a pointed cone thrust at the floored Gem. A fresh plume of smoke filled the corridor, as O'Neil flew across it, and into the wall at its end.

Emily crawled to where Perry had been, tears dripping to the floor beneath her, waiting for the smoke to clear, when her hand fell on something that made her heart stop and her blood run cold.

"No... no no no... Perry no!" Emily wept, as she scooped a handful of green shards off the floor.

"Emily, I can't see! Wh... what's happened?" Dorothy pleaded. "Is... is she alright?"

For a few moments, Emily's weeping was the only sound, until a strained growl came from the end of the corridor. Despite taking a blast at point range, O'Neil was still conscious and trying to climb to her feet. Emily slowly stopped crying and rose. Her Gem pulsed like a heartbeat, getting steadily brighter. Green sparks began to leap across her face as she marched down the corridor towards her aunt's murderer.

Back in the lab, the screens displaying the mission status began to flicker. As it would later be deduced, Emily's emotional state had made her powers run amuck, forming a virus which destroyed anything it could transmit to, including the lab.

"Emily! Emily we're losing you!" Dorothy cried. "Just take the kid and Warp back, please!"

"Emily, it's me!" Mandy called, running over. "I'm so sorry but... please come back!"

Emily ignored them, her eye locked on O'Neil, as she towered over her.

"Someone has to save humanity..." O'Neil scowled.

"Oh yeah...?" Emily spat. She aimed her gauntlet, and the palm glowed brighter and brighter, as Emily's power undid all of the gauntlet's failsafes, which made them non-lethal. " _Well,_ _who the fuck is gonna_ _save you?_ "

That was where we lost Emily. The power in the lab overloaded, and the signal was lost, and slowly, the rest of the lab's functions failed, one by one, until the power gave out. Emily never spoke about it again, and when I talked to Tina, she just said that, 'There was hardly anyone left to arrest.' All three sites _were_ raided though, after gunshots were reported inside, and the evidence was found that a fanatical group were kidnapping American citizens, under the suspicion that they were aliens. Countless people were arrested, and the Gem Hunters were labelled a terrorist group. So, in many ways, our missions were an absolute success, and yet, in another, it was where absolutely everything went wrong...


	23. Doctor Dorothy

Some time after the lab lost power, but before Emily returned, Bird Person and Sabina arrived, surprised to find the building out of power, and forced their way in. With Dorothy in tears, and Mandy desperately comforting her, Olivia remorsefully recounted Emily's mission, up to the discovery of the mutilated hybrid child, Perry's demise, and the loss of contact with Emily.

Sabina had been more than enthusiastic for some revenge on the Gem Hunters, and was far from discouraged by their act of violence against Perry, but was deeply uncomfortable by the display of emotions she was met with, in the lab, which she was unable to relate to.

Soon after, Perry's car pulled into the car park below the building, and Emily emerged, with the barely conscious hybrid in her arms. She took him up to the lab, and lay him down on the couch in her living room. Dorothy was still inconsolable, herself, when Emily returned, but Mandy raced over to her, the moment she arrived at the lab, trying, to no avail, to get her to talk about how she felt.

Eventually, Bismuth and I arrived, startled to find the gloomy scene that greeted us, made all the more foreboding by the candles and Bunsen burners, sending shadows dancing over the walls, and then we were caught up. Of course, I was devastated by the story. I loved Emily _and_ Perry, and I couldn't believe the former was gone, but to my surprise, Bismuth looked almost as distraught as I was. I soon learnt why.

"These Gem Hunters... Th... They made a Breaking Point?" She gasped, turning a paler shade of violet.

Emily glared at her suspiciously.

"How do you know what a Breaking Point is...?"

I saw Bismuth's chest rise and fall and sweat form on her forehead. Clearly, she was struggling with something, and before she said a word, she committed firmly to her chosen response. "I designed it..." She scowled, unflinchingly.

Emily stood motionlessly for a second, before her face contorted with a fresh surge of rage, and a jolt of green lightning leapt from her Gem. She cried out in fury, and lunged at Bismuth, throwing her right fist at the behemoth of a Gem's chin. The result would have been comical, if it wasn't so sad. Emily's wrist buckled, as though she'd punched an actual rock, instead of just a hologram projected by one. Bismuth didn't react in the slightest. Emily doubled over and howled in pain, clutching her wrist.

Realising I was still soaked, from my dip in the healing tears fountain, I crouched down beside Emily, stretched out my shirt and wrung it over her wrist. With a sparkle of white light, Emily's wrist immediately corrected itself. Overloaded with emotions as she was, Emily only seemed marginally surprised, and didn't press for an explanation.

"I am so sorry." I offered her. "Perry was such a great Gem..."

"I'm sorry too." Bismuth said, gruffly. "I didn't shatter your friend, but you can bet I'm gonna make the people who did pay for it, and for stealing my design..."

"I'm sorry... but who are you?" Bird Person asked, rudely.

Bismuth frowned seriously, and marched into the middle of the lab. "The name's Bismuth." She declared, loudly. "I spent hundreds of years protecting this planet and the people who call it home, whether they're Gems, humans..." She shot a confused glance at Bird Person. "... or whatever the heck you're supposed to be... Now I never met this Peridot we lost, but if she stood for freedom and liberty like I did, then I'd be proud to call her a sister, and back in the war, when we lost a sister-in-arms, we got mad first, and mourned later!" She turned to Emily. "You. You're mad right? At me, at the Gem Hunters? Hold on to that feeling!"

"Hold on a minute!" Mandy said, indignantly. "We should process our feelings in a healthy way! Emily's not a soldier and we aren't at war!"

"Aren't we?" Emily snapped, rounding on Mandy, making her jump slightly. "There are still two more founding members of the Gem Hunters out there, and five major bases, and who knows how many soldiers!"

There was a pause, as we were all surprised by Emily's knowledge.

"Emily..." I cautiously began. "How do you know that...?"

"I... I don't know..." Emily replied, uncertainly. "Ever since Pe... Ever since it happened... My power's been acting weird... The longer I spent in that base... the more I just knew... about the Gem Hunters..."

Slowly, Dorothy climbed to her feet, and stared at Emily through teary and bloodshot eyes. "Your mom had the power to download information straight into her Gem... But... you have a human brain... you shouldn't be able to interact with your Gem like that!"

"Well... I can, it doesn't matter, it's just a new power..." Emily said, dismissively.

"Emily..." Mandy said, softly, taking Emily's hand. "Please listen to her... I'm really worried about what this is doing to you... Plus, your Gem's been glowing, since you came back..."

Mandy reached up to Emily's Gem, and an arc of green electricity leapt to her finger, forcing her to withdraw.

Olivia stepped over. "I've never been though anything like this before. For all we know, these kinds of emotional extremes could be dangerous to a Gem hybrid..."

"Yeah, I haven't either..." I agreed.

Emily pulled her hand away. "There'll be plenty of time to talk about our feelings once the Gem Hunters are in the ground." She snarled. "Bird Person, are you still ready to fight?"

Bird Person scowled, and nodded firmly.

Emily turned to Sabina. "What about you? You still want revenge?"

Sabina lifted her palms defensively. "Look, I don't know you, man, but I think these guys might be right. It really looks like this is messing you up..." She said, nervously.

Emily ignored her, and rounded on me. "Jayla?"

I cringed, nervously. Sabina was right, Emily looked sick, and I was worried about her, but I knew if I told her that, she wouldn't listen. Over Emily's shoulder, I saw Mandy staring pitifully at the back of her head. I badly wanted to help her, for both of their sakes, and logically, I would need to stay with her, to do so.

"Alright, I'm in." I said. "But I'm doing this for you, not because of the Gem Hunters."

"Whatever." Emily sighed. "Come on, let's go."

While Emily, Bismuth and Bird Person filed out the door, I stepped over to Mandy and pulled her into a hug. "I'll take care of her." I promised.

"Thank you..." Mandy gratefully replied.

Once I was gone, it was just Mandy, Olivia, Sabina and Dorothy left in the lab.

"So... I guess we should do something about the kid?" Olivia suggested.

While Sabina was uncertain, Olivia and Mandy quickly looked at Dorothy. While she had managed to stay on her feet, she was now slumped over a worksurface, with her face buried in her arms. After a few moments of silence, she looked up, and realised everyone was staring at her. "What...?" She asked, gloomily.

"You're the smartest person in the room, by a landslide." Mandy pointed out. "You're the only one who knows anything about Gems, you need to help him!"

"Gems? He isn't a Gem anymore, he's a sick human... Just take him to a hospital..."

Mandy would later describe Olivia's expression to me as, "Fire burning in her eyes." She marched over to Dorothy, grabbed her shoulders and pulled her upright.

"You listen to me, Peridot! If you want to wallow in your misery, then fine. Honestly, if that's how you want to grieve, then I won't stop you, but like Bismuth said, this isn't the time to mourn! There's a little boy who looks like death in the other room, and you're the only one who can help him!"

Dorothy struggled free of Olivia's grasp, and straightened the collar of her lab coat. "Why? Because I'm a genius? Is that what you think? Wrong!" She shouted, obnoxiously. "You wanna know the reason Perry and I were always fighting? Because we're both idiots! Emily's mom was always the smart one. Without her, Perry and I needed each other to scrape together any good ideas... and without either of them... I'm nothing..."

Sabina sighed, clearly uncomfortable about offering emotional advice to someone she didn't know, but anxious to help, nonetheless. "Look... man... everyone feels dependent on the people they love, but that doesn't mean you just give up, when you lose them. I don't know anything about you, but if you're some Gem super nerd with a bunch of hybrid friends, then you must have some idea what that kid needs?"

"You must have made contingency plans, for if Emily ever got hurt!" Mandy pointed out.

Dorothy opened and closed her mouth several times. "Well... We did gain a rudimentary understanding of how hybrids work... The Gems produce hardlight DNA strands..."

"... that mimic humans ones." Olivia joined in. "The other Peridot said that on our camping trip."

"Yes... Without a Gem, this boy's body has lost its ability to reproduce healthy cells. Most human cells are only viable for a few months, before they decay."

"So... we need to find a way to teach this kid's body how to grow new cells?" Mandy suggested, uncertain if that was possible, or not.

"Well, I mean... I suppose it wouldn't be _impossible_ to create an interface device compatible with a human body..." Dorothy admitted. "But, without a sample of his DNA, he produced with his Gem, we're going to need to know as much as possible about it, if we're to have any hope of replacing it."

"Well come on then!" Mandy said, patting Dorothy on the back, encouragingly, and running into the living room.

The boy was lying motionlessly, on the sofa, on his side. If it weren't for the very gentle movement of his chest, and his unnervingly infrequent blinking, one could be forgiven for assuming he was dead.

"Hey buddy." Mandy said, gently, kneeling next to him. "I'm Mandy. Do you... Do you understand me?"

Very slowly, the boy nodded his head once.

"Great! Okay, we're going to help you, but you have to tell us all about your Gem. Do you know what kind it was?"

"... Gem...?" The boy whispered.

"Yeah, your Gem! What kind of Gem was your mom? What was her name? Do you know?" Mandy pleaded.

"I... I can't..." The boy stammered, blinking rapidly, and shaking his head.

"Okay... Okay, it's alright." Mandy consoled him. She looked at the circular scar over his heart. "Well from the shape, we can rule out Jet, Pearl or Peridot, but that's not very helpful..." She sighed.

"Wait..." Olivia said, thoughtfully. "Didn't you say you needed to have three hybrids, to be able to track down others?"

"To establish a baseline, yes." Dorothy replied. "How does that help?"

"Well Bird Person said he'd never met the Gem Hunters, before they showed up when we were there. They must have only recently got three hybrids! JJ's one, him and you!" She pointed at Sabina.

"Yeah, while I was there, they strapped some doodad to my wrist, and said something about hormones." Sabina confirmed. "So?"

"So, you and the other one still have your Gems!" Olivia replied, as she briskly walked back into the lab, and returned a moment later with the armour Bird Person had confiscated, covered in Gem shards. "So, they can only have gotten these from him!"

A wash of realisation made its way around the room. Dorothy snatched the armour and squinted at the shards. "Ruby! Without a doubt!" She noted.

"Ruby. Does that sound familiar, pal?" Mandy asked the boy.

"Ruby...!" He cried out, weakly, misery clear in his voice.

"I'll take that as a yes..."

Back in the lab, Dorothy separated the shards from the armour, and placed them on the counter.

"Can you put them back together?" Mandy asked.

"No more than you could reassemble a human who'd been mauled to death..." Dorothy sadly noted.

She reached into one of the lab's many compartments, and pulled out a state-of-the art laptop and, after unlocking it, she opened a blank text document, and began writing line after line of code, her fingers like a blur, while muttering quietly under her breath.

"So, what are you doing?" Mandy asked, feeling like she should probably let Dorothy focus, but feeling anxious about what was being done to help the child.

"I'm writing a DNA sequencing algorithm, which is my closest estimation to how a Ruby would interact with human biomatter. This would be a lot easier with my notes on Emily's Gem and its behaviour, but those are... were on my main computer..."

Suddenly, Dorothy stopped typing and made a face like she'd remembered something.

"Olivia, look in the cabinet behind you and find the handheld blender-looking thing." She instructed, as she continued typing.

"You mean this?" Olivia asked, after searching, revealing a long device, with a bulky handle and a small dome at the end.

"That's it. Press the end against the palm of your hand, and press the button."

Olivia did. "What is it? Some kind of scanner, that OW!"

Olivia cried out and dropped the device, revealing a red mark on the palm of her hand.

"Give it! Give it!" Dorothy said, anxiously.

Olivia scowled as she picked up the device and handed it over, but didn't say anything.

"Sapphires and Rubies are far more alike than stuffy, upper crust Gems want people to think." Dorothy explained, as she pulled a USB cable from the other end of the device, and plugged it into the laptop. "This blood sample will be very helpful."

Eventually, after it looked like Dorothy had typed out the entire Harry Potter collection, she plugged what looked like a Gem-sized Roomba into her laptop, which she claimed to be uploading the algorithm to.

"We made these geo-organic interface devices when Emily got her first cold." Dorothy embarrassedly explained. "We... thought her Gem was rejecting her organic body... Honestly, it's a wonder she's still alive..."

"Will it be able to completely replace a Gem?" Olivia asked, worriedly.

Dorothy looked up, and furrowed her brow, in concern. "I guess we're about to find out..."

After a lot of anxious waiting, the upload was complete, Dorothy disconnected the device, and raced into the living room, tapping on its six buttons as she went. There, the group found the child, sitting cross-legged on the couch, staring at his knees, his hair hanging over his face.

"Alright little guy, this is gonna make you better... I hope..." Dorothy nervously said, holding the device up to the scar over his heart. "Now you might feel... Actually, I have no idea how this might feel. Happy thoughts, okay?" She smiled weakly, before setting the device in place.


	24. Heart to Heart

After Emily gave Bird Person and Bismuth the location of one of the founding Gem Hunters, the two of us got into her car, and set off after the other one. I'm not gonna do the flashback thing again, to explain both missions, I'll just give you the short version of theirs- They beat up a bunch of Gem Hunters, bonded a little, and I think they still meet up to train and play cards sometimes.

As the car zoomed out of Empire City, I looked at Emily, as subtly as I could. Her eye was still bloodshot and streaked with tears. I couldn't see her Gem, but last time I did, it was still glowing ominously. While the car was working fine, I could see that the radio was dead, as was my phone, when I checked it, experimentally. I could also see the screen on Emily's smartwatch, flickering indecipherably.

"So... after we've shut down this base..." I gingerly began.

"I don't want to talk about it..." Emily interrupted.

I sighed. I had no idea what to do. Should I tell her I was sorry, again? I doubted that would make her feel better. Mandy's uncle had died when we were twelve, and she'd just wanted space, which was all well and good, but I had no idea how to help to a friend who responded to grief with murderous rage.

"Okay, what do you wanna talk about?" I asked. "You catch Doctor Who last night? Mandy loves that show..." I smiled weakly.

Emily stared at the road and gripped the steering wheel tighter.

I sighed again. "Okay, let's talk game plan when we get there, then." I suggested. No one had said it in the lab, but it was fairly obvious what Emily had done after Perry had been shattered, and the lab lost contact with her. "We're still just knocking people out and calling the police, right?" I asked, nervously.

"They're not planning on knocking us out..." Emily quietly replied.

"Of course not, they're the bad guys!" I pointed out. "The fact that we don't kill them, is our helpful reminder that we're on the right side of this!"

"No, that's the fact that we don't tour the country, hunting down and murdering people!"

"We're literally doing that right now!"

Emily fumed silently for a moment. "They drew first blood. They're the aggressors here, not us!"

Mandy had briefly recounted Emily and Perry's conversation with Captain O'Neil. "No, other Gems did. Gems attacked these people, killed their friends and family, so they attacked you and Perry, now you're doing the exact same thing, and tomorrow, it'll be their surviving family, thinking all Gem hybrids are murderers! It doesn't end until some heart-broken victim decides to do the right thing. That's you, and now, Emily!"

"Stop it!" Emily hissed, squinting ahead.

"Emily, this isn't you! You can't let one bad person take everything away from you!"

"THEY ALREADY HAVE!" Emily shouted.

Even with her Gem on the other side of her head, I noticed its shine intensifying, and green sparks leaping across her side of the car, forcing me to shrink away. Emily cried out as though suddenly in pain, and the steering wheel slipped free as she relaxed her grip on it. The car swerved off the road, thankfully not hitting a barrier, or any other vehicles, and span across the ground beyond, sliding to a halt, just shy of hitting a tree.

I grasped hold of the dashboard in front of me, my chest rising and falling as my adrenaline slowly wore off. I looked over to Emily. Her movements were frantic and agitated, like she was having a panic attack. She quickly pulled her seatbelt off, and collapsed out of her door, falling onto her knees in the grass beside the car and crawling away. I opened my door, and ran around the vehicle, to join her.

"You haven't lost everything!" I insisted, dropping to my knees, next to her. "You've still got Dorothy, and Mandy... and you've got me!"

"That's not what I mean..." Emily wept, quietly, staring at the dirt, and squeezing handfuls of it between her fingers. "You know what I did to them, JJ... I can't... I can't take that back..."

"No..." I reluctantly agreed. "But that still doesn't have to change who you are! The you that hates this? The you that's inconsolable over what happened, to Perry _and_ the Gem Hunters? That's the real you! I know it hurts, but you have to accept that! You're not a killer, Emily!"

Emily gave a groan of pain, and her head sank lower to the ground. Even in broad daylight, I could see the glow of her Gem, on the grass. At first, I thought she was simply responding to her emotional anguish, before realising, to my horror, that I was wrong.

Slowly, something spread from Emily's fingertips, down her hands, causing her skin to turn dark green, and erupt in small, green thorns. It wasn't long before I drew the horrified conclusion of what was happening. During my stay in Beach City, Steven had explained how Gem corruption was something that happened to a Gem's mind, rather than her body, causing her to forget what her normal form was. Emily's emotional state was causing her Gem to stop properly forming her human body. A small part of me wondered if this was something that could happen to any ordinary Gem, but mostly, I wondered what I could do to help.

"Emily, listen to me. This isn't you!" I insisted. "These last few hours, you've been sick, and traumatised, but that doesn't change who you are! And that's an awesome, adorable nerd, with a huge heart, who's also a badass punk! You're driven and relentless, and you care! You care so much about your friends, and family, and even your enemies!"

Emily looked up at me, sharply. I was startled to see that her entire eye had turned emerald green. "I killed them!" She tearfully reminded me. "If Perry knew how I'd react, she would have just let that knife hit me... She was the hero... I'm just a monster..."

The mutation reached Emily elbows, and slowly progressed towards her shoulders.

"Then stop being a monster!" I desperately instructed. "If you don't think you were worth saving, then _be_ worth it! Be the person who Perry was prepared to get shattered to protect!"

"I'm not though..." Emily said, quietly. "She was wrong about me... you all were..."

I placed my hands on her shoulders, comfortingly. "You will never convince Mandy of that. She's crazy about you. You know that, right?"

I saw a glimmer of hope, as a faint smile crossed Emily's lips.

"If you don't believe in yourself, then believe us!" I told her. "I know you screwed up, and did some things you can't take back, but that doesn't mean you have to resign yourself to it, it doesn't have to define who you are!"

My heart soared, as the spread of green across Emily's arms slowed to a halt.

"What... what can I do...?" Emily asked, a fresh set of tears fell from her eye, as it slowly returned to normal.

Hoping she didn't mind. I pulled Emily into a tight hug. "We move on... We take care of the Gem Hunters, and make sure they answer for their crimes, with a long prison sentence. Then we go home, and you spend some time with the people who love you, or be by yourself. Whatever you need to do to heal. There's no being selfish when someone's going through what you're going through."

The two of us stay kneeling in the dirt for a few minutes. Over Emily's shoulder, I saw her corruption fully undo itself, and I breathed a hefty sigh of relief.

Eventually, Emily breathed, "Thanks JJ..."

I stood up, and pulled my phone out of my pocket. To my relief, (for both Emily and my phone's well-being) it seemed to be working again. "I'll call Tina and give her the address." I said. "What do you say we go home?"

"N... no..." Emily gently but decisively said, climbing to her feet. "I think... I wanna finish this, the right way."

"You sure?" I asked, nervously. I believed that Emily was over her bloodlust, but she hardly seemed fighting fit, as well she wouldn't be.

"Yeah..." Emily replied. "This one's the big one, JJ, the leader of the Gem Hunters... I think I need to see this through. Besides... Perry sacrificed herself because she knew I couldn't dodge that knife. I wanna be brave like she was. The police might get hurt, taking this place head on."

"Alright..." I agreed, more than a little nervous, as we both got back into the car. "Let's end this."


	25. Death Match

The Gem Hunters had bases spaced out across America, most of them designed to hide in cities and towns, ready to snatch away hybrids, or lash out against Gems, in a misguided attempt to protect the human residents. Gem Hunter main HQ, where the founder had hidden, had no such agenda. Like the warehouse, where I had rescued Tyler, it was in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but woodlands for miles around. Unlike the warehouse, though, no attempt was made to hide this base's true function.

All that was visible of the base, was an enormous, semi-circular entrance, like the end of an airplane hangar, at the bottom of which, was a heavy-looking set of double doors. Presumably, there was more of the base, hidden beyond the cliff face, the entrance was built into. Having regained control of her Gem, Emily had summoned a small fleet, of seven Peridot Lab drones, which drifted down from the sky, as we left the car, and crossed the base's tarmac threshold.

"Are the guys in the lab controlling those?" I asked.

"No, I've got them on defense mode." Emily replied. "I... I'd rather talk to Mandy and Dorothy in person... after how I left..." She said, with shame in her voice.

I patted her shoulder and nodded, in approved understanding.

As we approached the door, I was about to ask Emily if she'd tried hacking into the base yet, when a booming voice echoed from an unseen speaker.

"Welcome hybrids. We've been following your work, I thought I'd be seeing you here, soon." From his voice, I could tell the speaker was a man, around forty to fifty years old. "I already know we won't be able to convince you to turn yourselves in and let us help you, but we prefer not to harm humans if we can help it, even deformed ones... You have one chance to turn around and leave. Security measures will be deployed in ten seconds."

In my head, I started counting. 10... 9...

"Can you hack into their systems?" I quickly asked Emily.

8... 7...

Her Gem glowed for a moment. "No, it's all closed circuit. The only thing I can access is their intercom."

6... 5... 4...

"So, what do we do!?" I asked. I didn't know what countermeasures were coming, but clearly, the Hunters had taken time to prepare for us.

3... 2... 1...

"Get to cover!" Emily decided.

The two of us vaulted over the car, falling to the ground, behind it and, with a sparkle from Emily's Gem, the seven drones joined us. In front of the base, I heard a smooth, mechanical whir. I braced myself, but nothing else happened. After making sure my shield was active, I poked my head around the car. On either side of the base's door, a tall cylinder had risen out of the tarmac, featuring motors and pistons, and a belt of bullets, all leading to a sinister minigun, at the top. The moment I exposed myself, they burst into life, and unleashed a blizzard of bullets in my direction. I immediately withdrew, and looked at my wrist display, seeing that my shield had had been lowered to 75%.

"Two miniguns..." I breathlessly reported.

Emily stared into the distance, and began muttering numbers under her breath, while lifting and lowering her fingers, thoughtfully. "Okay, turn around." She ordered.

I turned my back to her, and heard and felt Emily fiddling with my armour.

"I'm routing all your armour's power to shields, rather than repulsors. You'll need to draw their fire for seven seconds, so I can have the drones short them out, okay? But your shields still won't last that long, so use your future vision to evade them."

After building myself up for a moment, I climbed to my feet, and ran out into the open. "Hey! Over here! Look at me!" I called.

The miniguns immediately open fired, and I began darting left and right, trying my best to avoid the hail of bullets, but it was difficult, since getting hit by them didn't have much in the way of consequences... yet. My power wouldn't be that helpful until I was a bullet away from being hit, and it seemed that would come soon, as the guns were extremely precise, and almost impossible to evade.

To my simultaneous relief and dismay, the guns lost interest in me after Emily's drones flew out of hiding, and focused on them, instead. Clearly, they weren't fully autonomous, and someone inside was onto us. The moment the guns focused on the drones, I gave an over-the-top battle cry, and charged at the nearest one, leaping up its length, and grabbing hold of the gun barrels, strenuously forcing them away, with a burst of sparks and a grinding of metal.

By then, three of the drones had been shot down by the other turret, and the rest had suffered more than a few dings, in their attempt to draw close enough to disable it. After I wrestled my turret away, though, the other's attention shifted again, back to me. This proved to be a mistake though, as before it filled me with lead, the four drones immediately surrounded the turret and bombarded it with bolts of lightning, after which, it hung limp, with a mechanical sigh. As Emily strolled over, I gave one last heave, and tore my minigun from its pillar.

"Well that's one way of getting it done." She smirked.

"Violence is a classic for a reason." I smirked back.

We walked up to the door and examined it. There were two sliding doors, made of black metal. I knocked on it, experimentally, not hoping someone would be polite enough to open it, but trying to gauge its thickness. My knocks didn't reverberate in the slightest, and my knuckles stung. Clearly this door meant business.

"No luck?" I guessed, turning to Emily, remembered her failure to hack into the base, earlier.

Emily tried again, but frowned in annoyance. "Nope..."

The founder's voice came back, over the speakers. "That's right, and that door is twelve inches of pure titanium, built to withstand an _army_ of Gems! And even if you did get in..."

I interrupted, talking to Emily. "Didn't you say you had access to the intercom?"

Emily smiled knowingly, took her phone out of her pocket, and activated her Gem. The founder's threats stopped immediately, and were replaced with static, which a moment later, was replaced with the sound of Dorothy, tunelessly singing along to pop music, over a radio, just audible in the background.

I stifled a laugh. "What is this?"

Emily smiled. "Just something Dorothy does when she thinks she's alone, in the lab. Perry and I were gonna blackmail her with this..."

I rested a hand on her shoulder, comfortingly. "This is way funnier..." I consoled her.

We both laughed, more so when I realised that the Gem Hunters were unable to turn it off.

"So... How do we get inside?" I asked.

Emily stroked her chin thoughtfully for a moment, before gasping in realisation, and then covering her mouth.

"What?" I asked, hopefully.

Emily ran over to the car, and lifted the boot. "I can't wait to tell Dorothy about this. She went on and on to Perry, about how this was pointless, and a waste of time and resources."

From the car, Emily pulled a huge, metal backpack, which she slipped on. Trailing from it, was a thick power cable, leading to a familiar-looking, metal cylinder. Before I could issue a hushed exclamation of disbelief, Emily flicked a switch on the cylinder, and a blade, made of green light burst into life, with an iconic buzz.

"She really was the ultimate sci-fi nerd..." I sighed, shaking my head appreciatively.

"Yeah... Thanks Perry..." Emily sighed.

Emily's sombre expression switched to determined resolve, and she charged at the door. I was enough of a Star Wars nerd to know that Emily's form had been practiced extensively, to match the form used in the movies, as she leapt at the door, and carved four slashes in it, leaving a diamond of glowing, molten metal, over the space where the two doors met. While Emily shrugged off the backpack, I twisted on the spot and kicked the targeted area, sending it flying inwards, and the two door fragments separating, as they struck the base's interior.

Emily and I carefully jumped inside, and were joined by the four surviving drones. The interior of the base was cavernous, and lined with combat vehicles, including jeeps and attack helicopters. In between which, were around twenty more soldiers, armed with combat knives, and nervous expressions. Clearly, they had learnt from Blackthorn's footage, in more ways than one. At the back of the room, I was intrigued by the sight of something the size of a tank, only too tall, covered in a sheet of orange tarpaulin.

I summoned a boomerang in each hand, Emily charged her repulsors, and the drones crackled with electricity, menacingly.

"Looks like you morons brought knives to an awesome sci-fi weapon fight." I taunted, loudly, over Dorothy's singing.

"If any of you want to drop your weapons and run for your sad, bigoted lives, now's the time." Emily offered.

To my surprise, three of the soldiers waited just a moment, before taking Emily up on her offer. Dropping their knives and fearfully sprinting for the hole in the door.

"Well, that's the smart ones out of the way."

I soon realised that none of the soldiers were wearing earpieces, and drew the conclusion that, if they were wireless, they were probably serenading the soldiers with Dorothy's musical talents. That also explained why they weren't attacking. Satisfied that the first move was ours, I swung my arms and sent several boomerangs spinning at the soldiers on my side of the base. Some of them dodged, some parried, I didn't knock any of them out with my first attack.

Meanwhile, Emily open fired. Har target dived aside, and another threw his blade in her direction, which she just about managed to dodge. Another assailant attempted to take advantage of her distraction, before he was electrocuted by a drone.

On my side, I lead the soldiers between the vehicles, dueling them boomerang to knife, trying not to leave too many lines of sight, letting them attack from a distance. They were strong, quick and obviously well trained, and the fact that I could be stabbed to death at any time, was nerve-wracking, but between my future vision, and drone support, they dropped like flies.

Before long, Emily delivered a spin kick which was impressive for someone who had never trained in combat, which sent the last guard flying clean off his feet, and hitting the ground hard. Emily and I shared a moment of eye contact to ensure we were both still alive and in good health. Before turning to go deeper into the facility.

We'd barely taken a few steps, when someone ran into the room, clearly hoping to avoid being seen or heard, since they'd opened a door quietly, and ran quietly, not at us, but the enormous, tarpaulin-covered thing, in the back of the room.

"Whoa! Stop right there!" Emily ordered, aiming her repulsor.

The man quickly raised his hands in surrender. Before he spoke, I guessed that he was the gentlemen we'd spoken with over the speaker system, based on his age, and the fact that he was wearing a suit, rather than combat armour.

"You know this is absurd!" He spat, indignantly. "Someone has to save this planet and its people from destruction! Hybrid or no, the devastation of this planet affects you too!"

"Yeah, no argument there, we're just disagreeing on whether or not Gems are planning to destroy the earth." I sarcastically commented. "By the way... they're not..."

"So, what do you plan to do? Turn me in to the police?" The man scoffed. "Do you really think that that'll stop anyone from despising those alien menaces that are infecting your bodies?"

"No..." I said resignedly. "I don't think an American prison will do anything to improve your emotional state or rehabilitate you, but like you said, someone has to keep this planet and its people safe..."

"You honestly have no idea what those things are capable of, do you?" The founder snarled. "My family..."

"Were killed by Gems! Boo freaking hoo!" Emily loudly interrupted. "Sorry if I can't be sympathetic, but my aunt was killed by a Gem Hunter TWO HOURS AGO!"

In a fresh burst of rage, Emily unleashed a blast of repulsor fire, which the founder combat rolled clear of. Before Emily could fire again, the founder quickly squeezed the outside of his watch, as though pressing buttons. The purpose soon became clear. The watch emitted a harsh, whining sound, making me and Emily wince. In the absence of radio communication, the watch had sent an audio command, to whatever lurked beneath the tarpaulin.

With a flash of orange, and a mighty, mechanical groan, the thing lurched forwards, thrusting a shrouded appendage between Emily and the founder, shielding him from another blast from Emily, the movement causing the sheet to cascade from its form, to the ground. Shortly after Emily had revealed she was a hybrid, she had joked about being able to create a Gem-powered battle mech. Now that the founder was climbing into one, with monolithic weapons aimed at us, it was suddenly less funny.

The suit was twenty feet tall, with a sturdy metal endoskeleton, covered in shiny, orange plating. On one of its arms, was another minigun, twice the size of the ones outside, and on the other, was a device like a gigantic tuning fork, with lightning leaping between the prongs. In the suit's chest, was a cockpit, like one might find on a jet plane, and the founder sat in a seat, with numerous joysticks and buttons at his command, behind a translucent forcefield.

"You like it!?" The founder leered. "We salvaged it from a crashed Gem invasion craft. Now one more time... surrender, or _die_."

"Emily...?" I said, fearfully, without taking my eye off the mech, and wondering what the tuning rod did.

Once again, Emily was muttering under her breath. "Force output... metal integrity... top speed... Chances of survival..." She turned around, and noticed I took an extra interest in that last point. She cringed and wiggled her hand as if to say "So-so."

Realising Emily was as eager for my decision as I was for hers, I sucked in a nervous lungful of air and tried to sound brave. "We politely decline!"

The founder frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that."

With a sinister whine, the minigun built up speed, before aiming in our direction, and unleashing a maelstrom of bullets in our direction. Responding to a vision of the future, I tackled Emily out of the way.

"Don't get hit! It's too strong! Instant death!" I breathlessly explained.

We leapt for cover behind a Jeep, as the mech's gunfire tore across the room. At Emily's command, our four drones flew fearlessly to our aid. For a moment, I was confident. Surely the drones would be fast and powerful enough to evade the mech, and then disable it, as they had the guns outside. No such luck...

Peeking around the Jeep, I saw the drones bombard our foe, having all the effect of a water pistol against a tank. The founder had the mech raise its tuning rod arm, and the bolts of lightning leapt at the drones, destroying them one by one.

"What do we do?" I demanded to Emily. "That thing's too tough!"

"At that speed and power, we'd have seconds to attack safely, if we rushed it..." Emily estimated. "But I doubt any of our weapons can cut..." She trailed off, as we both thought the same thing.

"The lightsabre!"

"Okay..." Emily said, with resolve, "The screen on his console is wireless, if I make it flash really fast, it might stun him long enough for you to sprint for the door."

Trying hard not to think about the 'might', I nodded briskly. "Do it."

Emily leapt on top of the Jeep, and glared at the founder with a gleaming Gem. Miraculously, the founder cried out in distress, and the mech lurched visibly as he released the controls. Seizing the chance, I sprinted across the base's entrance, towards the door. As it turned out though, the founder wasn't as neutralised as we'd hoped. Shielding his eyes from the screen, he grasped desperately at the nearest controls, commanding the mech to grab the nearest Jeep like it was a toy car, and hurl it in my direction.

Without turning around, I hit the deck, just before the vehicle would have crushed me, on its path to the door, where it exploded, blocking my escape with a wall of flaming debris.

"Oh, so now you're in a hurry to leave!?" The founder sneered. "Not so fun when the... what did you say? 'Awesome sci-fi weapon' is used against you, is it!?"

I tried to flee to a helicopter for cover, but a blast of lightning from the mech sent it up in flames, and when I turned the other way, a blizzard of bullets blocked my path. All it took was the slightest turn from the mech's gun arm, and the hail of bullets tore across the room... and through me...

That's right, exactly twenty-seven bullets tore through my armour, and then my torso, like both were made of paper. The feeling was indescribable, as every pain receptor below my neck screamed to my brain that I was in trouble, but the pain didn't last long, as the supply of oxygen to my brain immediately stopped, and everything started to go dark. I just about managed to cough out the lungful of air I had been about to exhale, before I fell face first, onto the ground, in a growing pool of my own blood.

Now as I've been telling this story in first person, you might assume that all is well, that I brushed off this injury, defeated the Gem Hunters, and retired home, to tell my story over a cup of tea and some takeout. And while I won't spoil the ending of this thrilling saga, I will tell you one thing- Moments after hitting the floor of the Gem Hunter base, Emily's voice ringing in my ears, desperately crying my name, I, Jayla JJ Mills, was dead... as... heck...


	26. The End

Darkness...

All I could see was blackness in all directions. If this was the afterlife, I could have done a lot worse. It was certainly easier on the eyes than glaring, white clouds everywhere. Speaking of eyes, I could still feel mine. I blinked a few times, then flexed my joints experimentally, fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, toes. I was all here. I suddenly remembered how I had ended up here, and grasped my torso. No bullet wounds. No shirt either... but I wasn't naked, I was wearing some kind of rubbery body suit.

Slowly, a dull light started to shine in front of me. Not the proverbial light one is supposed to go into, when in situations like mine, but a blurry image, slowly getting brighter and clearer, amidst the darkness, like a gigantic TV. Along with it, came a voice. Like the image, it slowly grew clearer, and more distinguished.

"...la … yla... JAYLA!" It was Emily's voice, rife with despair and grief.

The image swam into focus, and I realised I was looking at the ceiling of the Gem Hunter base. Suddenly, Emily leaned into view.

"Jayla, come on...! I can't lose you too!"

I was fairly sure that, wherever I was, Emily wouldn't be able to hear me, and it stung, because I desperately wanted to reassure her that I was alright (or at least, I thought I was). Emily had already been through so much, and I hated that she mistakenly thought that she had my death to deal with, too.

I was about to call out anyway, just in case, when I noticed that there was a figure in between me and the display. Someone tall and slender, in skintight clothes, like mine, staring at the display with their back to me. The darkness made it difficult to tell what they looked like, especially what colour they were, but if I had to guess, I'd say their clothes were black, their skin was grey, and their hair, a sharp, upright mohawk, was silvery white.

As I approached, I could hear them groaning anxiously under their breath, and whispering, "Come on... get up..."

"Erm... excuse me...?" I gently caught the attention of my only company.

Despite my attempts to be quiet, the person cried out in alarm, and threw her limbs into a defensive stance, as she span around. With the light behind her, I could barely make her out, but I just about saw her look me up and down, and her fearful alarm turn to surprise.

"Oh my gosh... It's you... You're here!" She gasped.

Before I could defend myself, she grinned maniacally, leapt at me and hugged me tightly, wrapping one arm around my back, and with the other, pressing my head to her chest. I was about to resist, when I felt a familiar shape pressing against my forehead, and my eyes widened in shock.

The screen faded away, yet despite this, my surroundings grew more bright. From out of the darkness, four walls, a floor and a ceiling faded into existence and loomed towards us, forming a room, and furniture rose out of the floor like zombies. We found ourselves standing in a living room, connected to a kitchen, like in mine and Mandy's apartment, only bigger. Between the chunky TV, and the dated pop culture references on the posters on the wall, it looked like we were in the 90's. Once the room had assembled, light flooded in through the windows, revealing Empire City outside. Of course, I didn't care about any of this, because I'd realised who was hugging me.

I gently pushed away, and saw, in the light, a beaming face I'd seen in countless photos, and a Gem I saw in the mirror every day. "Mum!?"

"Jayla!" Jet excitedly greeted me back. "My sweet, precious girl! I can't believe you're really here!"

I really wanted to be happy that I was meeting Jet, which I'd always thought couldn't be possible, but I was too curious to know how it was.

"Where is this!?" I anxiously demanded. "And how are you here!? You're... HERE!" I pointed at my chest.

Jet smiled sweetly. "No... I'm not." She gestured to all of me, and then to the room around us. "None of this... is real... not in the tangible sense anyway. When a Gem's body is... well... you know..."

Jet didn't want to refer to my recent obliteration by minigun fire. That was fair. "They retreat into their Gems..." I finished. Suddenly, the darkness made sense, it _was_ a black Gem after all, but what was the meaning of this apartment? "What is this place though?"

"My happy place." Jet explained, with a grin. "It's mine and your mom's first apartment together."

The information falling into place, I began to understand what was going on, and now that I was less confused, new emotions were taking priority.

"It's... it's really you..." I breathed, a tear rolling down my cheek. "Mum..."

I pulled her into another hug, and she quickly hugged me back. "Of course it is, sweetheart."

"I've only ever heard wonderful things about you... I wish I could have met you sooner. I'm sorry I couldn't get here until..." I thought about the recent events again, and stepped back from the hug, feeling a sting of guilt. "Emily! I can't stay here! She needs me!"

Jet shared my look of concern and pointed at me, as if to say I was right. She took my hand, and led me to the sofa, leaping over the coffee table before taking a seat. I reluctantly let myself be pulled down next to her. Jet produced a remote, and turned the TV on. It showed the base again, except this time, the view was horizontal, albeit askew. The soldiers had returned, and I could just about make out the legs of two of them, standing protectively at each side of the screen. The founder was still in his mech, in the distance, and nearby, Emily was on her knees, her wrists cuffed behind her back, staring at me, desperately.

"She's in trouble!" I cried. "I need to get out there and help her!"

Jet held her head anxiously, grabbing hold of her afro in one hand. "You can't! Your body is still damaged! It takes weeks for humans to regenerate that much body mass! Who knows how long it'll take you to recover!"

"There must be something I can do!" I pleaded.

"Sweetheart, you're a human!" Jet said, urgently but apologetically. "You can't exist outside the Gem without..."

Suddenly, her expression changed. I saw hope and I latched onto it. "What? What is it?"

"You can't help Emily without a body. There's no way for you to reach her on your own..." She grasped my shoulders. "But you're never alone, Jayla. There _is_ a way for us to help, but I'll need your permission."

I held her wrists and looked urgently into her eyes. "Anything."

-x-x-x-

Back in the base, unease was in the air. At the founder's instructions, two of the soldiers pulled me to my knees, while another secured Emily in handcuffs, while she gave very little resistance, focused on crying out to me, to wake up. Despite the fact that my torso resembled an undercooked steak, it didn't seem like I was bleeding any more. Instead, my bullet wounds had become ominous, black voids. Beyond that, I looked like an ordinary, human corpse.

"Take her to the holding cells." The founder instructed. "We still don't know what happens to a hybrid when they die. It could be valuable information. Lock her in maximum security, no one goes near her, no matter how badly the doctors want a sample. And handcuff her now, just in case."

After complying with the latter order, securing my wrists in front of me, two of the soldiers lifted me by the shoulders, and dragged me past Emily. She looked on anxiously, as though struggling to decide if she should run after me or not.

"What about this one?" One of the soldiers, closest to Emily, asked.

The founder considered it for just a moment. "Kill her, but don't damage the Gem, same as the other one. A second subject will give us a clearer result."

Two guards behind Emily pulled her to her feet. Even with Emily injured, distraught and her hands cuffed behind her back, it took all of the soldiers' strength to subdue her, while a third guard approached her with a knife. While Emily writhed and protested, her Gem glowed, the building's lights flickered and the intercom began playing stuttering white noise. Tensions were high across the base as Emily's would-be executioner neared, but with moments to spare, a suitable distraction saved Emily's life.

I planted my feet on the floor, and, with my hands still cuffed together, drove an elbow into one of my captor's faces. The other barely had time to turn in my direction, before I leapt into the air, and floored him with a jump kick. I say it was me doing all this... not exactly true, but that's how it looked, for now...

I turned around, and the room vocally reacted to the sight of my eyes, which had turned black, and a blackness slowly began to spread across my body, from my Gem, like the Bleeding Edge armour from Infinity War.

"Gem Hunters..." I scowled, in a voice that clearly wasn't mine. "I recognise you're a formidable military, and a significant threat to life on earth. You've got the technology, the loyalty and the strategy of a real army, but you made one fatal, devastating mistake, which will undo everything you've done so far..." The blackness reached my neck and turned grey and then white, as Jet took form, for the first time in twenty two years, around my recovering body. "YOU MESSED WITH MY DAUGHTER!"

While I was still inside Jet's apartment, inside her Gem, cheering her on, Jet sprang into action. She snapped the handcuffs off like they were made of breadsticks, and hurled a boomerang at the guard approaching Emily with a knife, and then leapt at one of the ones restraining her. The guard didn't even have time to draw his knife, before Jet swept his feet out from under him with her leg, and sent him hurtling to the floor with an elbow to the stomach. No longer outnumbered, Emily thrust her head backwards into the remaining guard's face.

"It's... Jet, right?" Emily asked, uncertainly, as Jet tore Emily's handcuffs apart.

"Thanks for taking care of my little girl." Jet smiled.

Emily cringed and rubbed the back of her head. "She definitely took better care of me..."

The two weren't distracted for long. The remaining guards, on the other side of the base took arms, aiming their rifles. Jet immediately summoned two boomerangs, almost as big as she was, and jammed them into the ground, forming a cross, and pulled Emily to the floor behind it. The two weapons emitted a black, mist-like aura which, it turned out, was bullet proof. Inside the Gem, I wondered if I could do that.

"Cause a distraction, and I'll finish this." Jet suggested.

"Got it." Emily agreed.

She already knew what Jet had in mind. At the Gem's command Emily had the base's intercom emit an ear-splitting shriek. The guards relented for just a split second, which was all Jet needed. She leapt over her cover, and threw boomerangs from midair, flooring the remaining guards, one by one. But before Jet hit the ground, the founder's mech lunged forwards, and snatched her from the air. An enormous, three-fingered hand slammed Jet into a wall, fracturing it behind her, and pressed painfully. The lightning cannon, mounted on the arm crackled menacingly, and the founder leered at Jet from just a few feet away, in his shielded cockpit.

"You think a single Gem, can undo our entire operation?" He sneered. "This technology was designed to crush the life out of pests like you, by the hundred!"

"Oh, I know..." Jet grinned victoriously, between wincing in pain. "It's an Era 1 Epsilon class battle mech. I used to pilot the Era 2 models back on Homeworld. I wonder how similar they are..." Jet took a deep breath, and began talking very quickly. "Emergency shutdown Pink Blue Pink Yellow White White Blue Pink Yellow!"

With a mechanical whine and an outraged cry from the founder, the mech suit collapsed to the floor as though it had had enough and wanted to call it a day. While the founder frantically tried to remove his seatbelt, Jet saved him the trouble by tearing him from the cockpit by the collar of his shirt, and lifting him threateningly above her head.

"The next time a Gem Hunter hurts my little girl enough for me to take form, I'm coming for you." She promised, with a dark stare. "I don't care where you are, I don't care how involved you were. I don't care if you quit the Gem Hunters and moved to Australia. If I were you, I'd take a very deep interest in how this organisation behaves in the future."

She hurled the founder across the room, towards the exit, where he frantically scrambled to his feet, and ran for the hole in the door. Jet let out a deep sigh, and turned to face Emily.

"Look after JJ while she regenerates, okay?" She asked.

Before Emily could reply. Jet gently lay down on the concrete floor, brushed herself off and, after lying still for a second, her form shrank back into her Gem, like paper into a vacuum cleaner, leaving my still unconcious body.

-x-x-x-

And that's the last we saw of the Gem Hunters, more or less. With Tina's help, the police scoured the country, quickly finding their bases, and rounding up their troops by the truckload. After Jet shut down their main base, her and I got to spend some quality time together, until a couple of hours later, when my body finished healing. Before I left, Jet made me promise not to blow my own brains out, the next time I wanted to talk to her.

I'm happy to say that the kid Emily rescued made a full recovery. His name's Jamie. He can't use Gem powers anymore, but Dorothy claims that he'll never age, unless they upload new ages into the Gem prosthetic she made. The next day, we all went outside the city to have a funeral, and a burial for Perry and Jamie's mum. Dorothy was unfamiliar with the custom, and got frustrated when she found it didn't make her feel better, but I think she appreciated the effort, deep down.

It turned out Jamie had lost his dad in a car crash a few years back, and had been living in a children's home when the Gem Hunters captured him, and of course, there was no question of him staying there, so while Emily lost an aunt, she gained a little brother.

Speaking of Emily, she and Mandy are stronger than ever. Emily would always be haunted by what she'd done at the Blackthorn base, but it never changed how Mandy thought about her, and Mandy was happy to be there for Emily, while she overcame her grief. As for the rest of the hybrids, Olivia and Sabina got back to their respective lives, promising to assemble again in a heartbeat, should they be needed. Tyler still texts me sometimes, eager to join the team when his dad thinks he's old enough, and Bird Person just up and vanished. I think he's still lurking around Empire City, Batman style, like the moody edgelord he is.

Haven't heard from Steven since then. According to Bismuth, he went to the Gem Homeworld on a diplomatic mission, or something? Sounds pretty intense. Honestly, a couple of weeks ago, I might have been jealous or insecure, but now I have important work of my own to do. Jamie's implant gave Dorothy a million new ideas about curing corrupted Gems, and when we're not working on that, there are still who-knows-how-many more hybrids out there to find.

As exciting as the last week had been, I couldn't wait for what came next. New friends to meet, monsters to fight, and Gem crises to contain. So, one more time for the road- My name's Jayla Mills, I'm half Jet and half badass biker chick, my friends call me JJ, and I'm on a mission to save the world.


End file.
